are 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



THE NILE 
WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



BY 

FREDERIC EDEN. 



r? 







HENRY S. KING & CO., 65, CORNHILL. 
1871. 



[All rights reserved. \ 



I 



TO 



GEORGE POULETT SCROPE, F.R.S., F.G.&, 



AS AN EXPRESSION 

OF AFFECTION 
FROM HIS NEPHEW. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



CHAPTER L 

Introductory 1 

CHAPTER II. 

Alexandria 5 

CHAPTER in. 
The Fit Out 16 

CHAPTER, IY. 

Fresh Provisions. Money 25 

CHAPTER V. 

Alexandria to Head oe Delta 33 

CHAPTER VI. 

Cairo 48 

CHAPTER Vn. 
Cairo to Minieh 58 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Minieh to Sioot 68 

CHAPTER IX. 

Sioot to Keneh . ' . .79 

CHAPTER X. 

Keneh to Esn£ 99 



PAGE 

CHAPTER XL 

Esne to Assouan Ill 

CHAPTER XII. 
Assouan to Phil^e 134 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Philje to Korosco 153 

CHAPTER XIY. 
Korosco to Wadi Haleeh 169 

CHAPTER XY. 
Wadi Haleeh to Phil^e 178 

CHAPTER XYI. 

The Descent op the Cataract 205 

CHAPTER XYII. 
Assouan to Thebes . . . . . . . . 218 

CHAPTER XVTIL 
Luxor to G-ir&eh . . ... . . . . 237 

CHAPTER XIX. 

GlRGEH TO SlOOT 260 

CHAPTER XX. 

Sioot to Cairo 271 

CHAPTER XXI. 
Cairo to Alexandria . . . . . . 298 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DEAGOMAN. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

In the spring of 1869, I received my doctor's orders to 
go to Bad Gastein. Chilled by the cold, and wearied by 
the length of the preceding winter, my wife and I 
resolved to shirk the following one, or, at least, to pass 
it in some southern climate. 

Tired of the Riviera, and knowing how very cold 
Italy can be, our thoughts turned longingly to the 
Nile. That we were forced to cross the half of Europe 
seemed an excellent reason for traversing the other 
moiety; and besides, for a sick man, there were two 
tempting water-routes from the Tyrol to Egypt. The 
one, down the Danube, via Constantinople; the other, 
by Venice 1 and Brindisi. Before setting out on such a 
journey, however, it was necessary to count the cost, and 
to have more information respecting the advantages and 
drawbacks offered by the Nile to small people than we 
could gather from Dr. Russell's letters to the Times. So 
we bought and studied " Murray's Handbook to Egypt," 
and made inquiries among our friends. The result was 
sufficiently disheartening. Murray, admirable in his 

B 



2 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



knowledge of Egypt 4000 years ago, told us all an 
antiquary could reasonably wish to know of tlie ancient 
kings, the order of their succession, the things that 
they did, and the temples that they built; but was 
despairingly vague as to present prices, and the state of 
affairs existing. Such estimates as he gave were deter- 
ringly high; and as we had been told that the chief food 
of Upper Egypt was turkeys, the 81 piastres (8s.) he 
named as the price of an average one was not reassur- 
ing. Our private information, too, pointed in the same 
direction. 

The dahabeah necessary for a voyage up the Nile would 
cost from £100 to £200 a month, and a dragoman might 
be found to feed us at £2 per head per diem — that is to 
say, in ordinary years; but in this, 1869, the pasha's 
world-wide invitation to see the opening of the Suez 
canal would so fill Egypt that prices would be far higher 
than usual. We fortunately, however, applied to an 
acquaintance who had passed many years in Alexandria, 
and had but lately quitted it. With the greatest good 
nature, he answered all our inquiries, and offered us the 
dahabeah he had left behind him. We hired her at the 
price his agent had had instructions, previous to our 
application, to ask ; and, thanks to the constant kindness 
of these two gentlemen, we were able to pass from the 
steamer which brought us to Alexandria directly into 
our boat. 

There must be many invalids to whom a winter in the 



DRAGOMANS. 5 

almost perfect climate of Upper Egypt would be of much 
benefit. There must be still more to whom to change 
the cold and damp, the constant variation and fatiguing 
length, of an English winter, for the warmth, light, and 
open-air life of the same season in Egypt, would be an 
almost unmixed gain — to whom the change of habits, 
the novelty of the scene, and the absence of papers, 
letters, and business, would be the best of tonics, mental 
and physical. All of these may not care to travel en 
prince, none may have the advantage we happily pos- 
sessed of a friend behind the scenes, and it is to aid, if 
perchance we may be able so to do, some one or more 
who may wish to pass a winter on the Nile that these 
pages, written at the time for our amusement, are now 
published. Our object is to give, by the narration of our 
own experiences, that information it is so difficult to obtain 
upon even the most ordinary thing that one desires or is 
compelled to do in a manner at all unusual. Nothing is 
easier than for a rich man to go to Cairo and to engage 
a dragoman. By signing a single written coutract, all 
trouble as to what he shall eat, drink, see, or pay, where 
he shall sleep or go, will then be taken off his hands. 
The same useful personage will, as a rule, with more or 
less accuracy, answer his every question on every subject. 
The class are, as far as I have heard, very intelligent 
and honest — tried by the standard of the East. They 
are always obliging, with due regard, of course, to their 
own interest, and liberal in fulfilment of their contracts. 

b 2 



4 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



But, as may be expected, their charges are ridiculously 
high, and with many everything yields to the desire to 
make the best of their bargain. Still, as I have said, they 
are most useful. Couriers of the Bast, they smooth all 
difficulties, and stand between the traveller and nearly all 
annoyances. If their information is not always correct, 
nothing that I know of in Egypt is ; and if they are a 
little greedy themselves, they do a great deal to protect 
their master from the rapacity of others. 

But it is not given to all men to enjoy such luxuries as 
couriers and dragomans, and we hope to show in these 
pages how they in Egypt may be dispensed with. "With 
that view we shall add to the account of our inland 
voyage lists of such provisions and other articles of 
outfit as we found useful, if not necessary. We shall 
endeavour to give such information as we sought for in 
London before starting, and as many details as we think 
may be of service to those who venture on " the Nile 
without a dragoman." 



CHAPTER II. 



ALEXANDRIA. 

Timing our start from Venice so as to avoid tlie crowd 
rushing to the opening of the Suez Canal, we took our 
passage by the steainer, via Brindisi, which was due at 
Alexandria just too late for the commencement of the 
viceroy's fetes. Our vessel, II Principe Carignano, knife- 
like in shape, was molto agile, as one of her officers 
told us, in behaviour. The weather was bad, and she did 
not belie her character. All miseries, however, come to 
an end, and we reached our port on the 19th November. 

As soon as I came on deck, and before there was time 
to take in and wonder at the sight, at first so striking, of 
a motley Eastern throng, a note was put into my hand. 
The bearer was an intelligent-looking little man, with 
crepe hair and a smooth face. He was dressed in a fez, 
bright blue embroidered cloth jacket, white embroidered 
Greek waiscoat, and trousers of calico, spotlessly 
white, most voluminous in folds, and tight at the 
ankles. He was the Egyptian servant of M. B., the 
French gentleman who acted as agent for our daha- 
beah, and who, having undertaken to help us on our 
way, well fulfilled his offer. M. B. arriving imme- 
diately afterwards, we landed at the custom-house, and 
made acquaintance with Egyptian officials. 



6 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 

There is a terrible sameness in the world. Every- 
thing passed as it might have done at any European 
port, except perhaps that our detention was less long 
than usual, and that our five-franc pieces, openly expected, 
were given without disguise. On passing European cus- 
tom-houses, it may sometimes be expedient, but it is not 
necessary to give; but he who enters Egypt without 
money in his hand will see his effects pass a bad quarter 
of an hour : the officials have the right of search, and 
they exercise it. "We had nothing but our clothes with 
us, nothing of any kind contraband, and so our ten francs 
were graciously received, and ourselves and goods most 
obligingly passed. After a row with a gang of porters, 
in all kinds of costume, carried on in a dozen dialects, 
during which, by the care taken of us, we were able to 
appear only as an amused audience, we pushed into a 
couple of carriages, and set out for the Mamoodeeh Canal. 

Our way took us through Alexandria, a cosmopolitan city 
of French houses, Italian villas, Turkish lattice-windowed 
buildings, and native mud hovels, where every tongue is 
commonly spoken, and every coin is in current circulation. 
A city of extremes and contrasts. Deluged in winter by 
rain and at times even pinched by cold, it is annually 
scorched for five months by a fierce sun, dusted by desert 
sand, and parched by drought. Excellent'European shops 
of all descriptions stand amongst Eastern coffee-houses 
and bazaars. Inhabited by men of all nations, a fancy 
ball could scarce produce a more incongruous crowd than 



SKETCH OF THE CITY. 



7 



that wliicli fills its streets. English, and Greek sailors 
jostle their way through a throng of Italian and French 
merchants, German mechanics, Maltese servants, Turkish 
and Egyptian women, donkeys with their boy-masters, 
and camels with their Arab drivers. More beautiful 
women may be seen in it in a day than anywhere out of 
London, and others, poor things ! more ugly and squalid 
than any even London can produce. There passes a car- 
riage full of Greeks who contradict ones insular prejudices 
in favour of English beauty, and there an artificial 
product of the Boulevards is knocked by a donkey off her 
high heels into a puddle. And what puddles ! In this, 
the old part of the town, there is no road properly speak- 
ing, and no pathway. Man, woman, or beast, each 
takes the way which offers, and makes the best of the 
open space. The road was once, like everything in 
Egypt, well, even prodigally, made, and then left to take 
take care of itself. After the manner of roads, it gave 
unevenly, and the weak parts had become qaagmires, the 
strong, rocks. The ruts were not ruts, but rather chains 
of ponds filled with mud which was water, and with 
water which was mud. Between the ponds the rem- 
nants of the old road served as embankments, and at each 
moment our carriage hauled painfully up one of these, 
poised itself dripping at the top before making another 
plunge into the sea below. Bad, however, as was the 
road, the scene was so novel and amusing that we were 
almost sorry to rumble through the gate of the fortifica- 



8 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



tions out into our first palm plantation. Passing a very 
pretty garden and the cemetery, a little more jolting 
brought us to the canal, and there lay our boat and home 
for the next five months. 

The first glance at her was an anxious one, and the 
result a little dispiriting. She looked very small, she 
was in some disorder, and her crew were huddled together 
on the bank under a tent extemporised to shelter them 
from the pitiless storms, between two of which we had 
landed. The background of the picture was even less 
promising. There are probably few bits of the earth 
uglier than the one on which we stood. The canal there 
makes a bend so that only so much is seen as will make 
a pond, the whole ugliness of whose flat mud-banks, 
muddy water, and surrounding mud huts is forced upon 
one by the necessity of looking at it. Its dirt, damp, and 
cold, its squalor and poverty were all there, and one could 
not look over or beyond, for there was nothing else to 
see. We went into our cabin; M. B., whose time pressed, 
left us. The rain began again, and we sat down among 
our unpacked goods and unknown servants. 

But hunger soon roused us to action, and we called for 
the cook, who had just been pointed out to us. Grirghis 
{anglice, George) had not been well-treated by nature, 
nor did he possess the art or taste to make the least of 
his disadvantages. His bullet-shaped head, and lank, 
lustreless brown hair, was covered by a tarboosh, not 
too new, round which was twisted a white and red cotton 



OUR SERVANTS. 



9 



handkerchief, not too clean. Large black eyes that shone 
in the dark, if ever eyes so shone, and a shapeless coarse 
mouth, gave him a cruel animal appearance that much 
misrepresented the man. A dirty brown cloth jacket, the 
worse for wear, and none the better for his recent donkey 
ride to Alexandria; a waistcoat whose embroidery was 
worn and buttons defective, trousers of the butcher-boy 
blue colour and texture, with Blucher boots innocent 
from their birth of blacking, completed, with the help of 
a red sash and a few inches of Girghis between trousers 
and Bluchers, his not too inviting appearance. But we 
were hungry, and asked what we could have for breakfast, 
putting our question in English, of which we had been 
told he understood enough to receive in it his orders. His 
answer was, "Yes, ma'am," given with the purest London 
accent. Again and again we tried to make our wants 
known, but it was an unusual hour for eating, Girghis 
was not happy at guessing, and I had to reinforce my 
English by pantomime. This was easy, but not so to get 
his reply as to the state of the larder; so we called 
Ibrahim, our soffraghee or table servant. His European 
language was Italian, and as he knew at least a dozen 
words, and always pretended that he understood whatever 
was said to him, Girghis was soon sent to the galley. 
Ibrahim was a tall ill-made native of Sioot. Hair and 
lips of the negro type, weak eyes, a sunken chest, 
enormous knees that no bagginess of trowsers could 
conceal, splay feet that no slippers could confine, with 



io THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



a general ungainliness of figure and motion, harmonised 
ill with the swagger and assumption of his manner. But 
enough of Ibrahim for the present; unfortunately we 
shall have more to say of him later on. 

Breakfast over, our first care was to examine the boat. 
Adahabeah has generally fine lines and a very handsome 
shape ; she is built of wood as a rule, but not rarely of iron. 
Her sides are low, her beam is great, and her draught 
light. In one respect her form is peculiar, for the 
bow is much deeper in the water than the stern. The 
older boats have a considerable sheer, the stern especially 
cocking up high out of water, but the newer ones are 
flatter. 

She is furnished with four means, of progression, viz., 
sails, punting-poles, tow-rope, and oars. The first three 
are used almost exclusively on the voyage up, and the 
oars on the voyage down. Her sails, two in number, are 
lateen. The trinkeet, or forward sail, is of great size, 
the yard on which it is laced being as long, and sometimes 
longer, than the hull of the boat itself. The ballakoon, or 
after sail, is small, bearing to the foresail much the same 
proportion as the dandy of a yawl has to its mainsail. 
Into the after part of the dahabeah is built a wooden house, 
which sometimes fills nearly half the boat; and the size of 
a distant dahabeah may be easily told by the number, six 
or eight, nine or ten, of the Yenetian-blinded windows 
with which the sides of the house are pierced. Inside 
are the cabins ; outside, on the roof, the deck where the 



OUR DAHABEAH—THE 'LOTUS: 



Nile travellers'' time is almost entirely spent. Two or three 
steps from the cabin's floor, which is in fact the floor of 
the boat itself, lead up on to the maindeck, and from this 
a staircase, or in large boats two, one on each side, gives 
access to the deck above. Three fourths of the maindeck 
are made of movable bars or planks that are taken up 
when the oars are used; and it is under this part of the 
deck that packages and cases are stored. The oars on 
the return voyage, when not in use, are lashed along the 
sides, each to its pin; but on going up they generally 
serve as a rail round the upper deck, being fastened 
rail-wise to iron uprights fixed for the support of the 
awning. Eound the mast are ranged the punting-poles, 
that play no second-rate part in a Xile voyage ; and im- 
mediately in front of it is the cook's galley. Every part of 
the boat from stem to stern is fitted with awnings. Canvas 
is the only roof ever given to the kitchen ; it closes in, 
when required, the sides of the main deck and of the cabins. 
It roofs them in also, and affords every possible protection 
from the sun. In the tents so made the crew sleep : the 
men on the main deck, the reis, or captain, and one or 
two others on the upper deck ; and in them on every day 
of rest the men hold feast and holiday. So swathed in 
her awnings is a dahabeah on such an occasion, that as 
little can be seen of her as of a racehorse in his clothes. 
The Lotus, a verv small boat, was about 53 feet long bv 

* it * O o 

10 feet broad. She had three cabins and a closet, open- 
ing one into the other. The main cabin, most amidships, 



12 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



was 8 feet 3 inches broad, 6 feet 6 inches long, and 6 feet 
6 inches high ; the other two were of the same length 
and height, but narrowing with the curve of the vessel. 
Large dahabeahs, indeed all that we saw excepting ours, 
have a passage down the middle leading aft from the 
main cabin. On either side are the sleeping cabins, often 
necessarily very narrow. Our boat, having no passage, 
afforded us better sleeping accommodation than we should 
have had in a vessel twice as large ; but the main cabin 
was small. Divans on either side of each cabin, and an 
infinity of lockers, drawers, and shelves, turned the 
space, however, to the best account, and for two people 
the little boat was very comfortable. Going out of the 
cabin on to the main deck, on one side was the staircase 
to the upper deck, on the other the pantry ; and in front, 
by the mast, stood the filter — a large goolah jar, set in 
a green wooden case. These jars are of earth, very 
porous, and consequently cooling. 

On the upper deck stand chairs, and divans, and per- 
haps a table. It can, as I have said, be completely sur- 
rounded and covered in by awnings, and a handsome 
Persian carpet is often spread upon it. The forewarder 
part is in fact a day-room, used by the owners more than 
is the main cabin. From the afterpart the boat is steered, 
and it is more or less abandoned to the reis, steersman, 
and the poultry. Our boat, however, had a ginnayn, or 
garden, as the five or six feet of extreme stern, some- 
times not occupied by the cabins is called, from the 



HINTS FROM A RESIDENT. 



habit that prevails in the native boats of placing here 
one or more pots of flowers, generally cactuses. We 
found oar garden most useful. From it the ballakoon was 
worked, and in it our chicken coops were ranged. 

Such is the best description I can give of the travelling 
Nile-boat; and a more graceful boat, or one better 
suited for its purpose, it would be hard to find. The 
fine lines and immense sails give it the power 
requisite to stem the rapid current of the Nile. The 
lateen cut of these sails spreads the canvas high 
above the shelter of the oftentimes deep banks. The 
great beam gives stability and accommodation. The light 
draught makes her easy to tow, and, for so large a boat, 
easy also to row. Thereby, too, she has abetter chance of 
escaping the numerous sandbanks ; and as she strikes 
them with her deepest part, the bow, she is more easily 
got afloat again. The low freeboard, only about two feet 
from the waterline, adds to her lightness in fact and ap- 
pearance ; whilst her long pennants, gaily painted sides, 
and white canvas, bordered often by one or two cloths of 
blue, give the boat a most picturesque and holiday-like 
look. Near or at a distance, a dahabeah is fair to see. 
Near, she is a picture of comfort and convenience, of 
adaptability of means to an end. In all things a perfect 
boat-home. At a distance she resembles a bird on the 
wing rather than a boat on the water. 

Our first day on board, however, was by no means an 
agreeable one : bad weather kept us in the cabins, and 



14 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



the horrors of unpacking had to be endured in a very- 
small space. It was novel to see the servants, and even 
one of the crew whom we sent with a message, start for 
Alexandria on donkeys (nobody in this country will go 
half a mile on foot if he can help it) ; and it was suffi- 
ciently amusing to see their return and the donkey-carried 
provisions. But it was by no means fun trying to settle 
accounts afterwards with men who did not understand us, 
and whom we did not understand ; more especially as 
Ibrahim, who understood us best, was determined for his 
own purposes to do so but little. It was evident that 
one was a rascal, if not both; and if they would cheat us 
at Alexandria, where we were among friends, what would 
they do when we got up the country. 

The next morning we saw M. B., and asked if it 
was not possible to get better servants, or at least one 
who would have some language in common with us. He 
most kindly went through the account of the day before, 
and pointed out the items which were excessive, and 
those which were only high. The chickens for instance 
were too dear, and a franc was worth eight piastres, not 
seven; but it was clearly exorbitant to reckon the penny 
egg-cups at a franc apiece. Somebody was not quite 
honest, nevertheless it was better to keep the men we 
had got : to change would occasion delay ; servants were 
this year most difficult to find, owing to the great influx 
of foreigners. In a short time they would understand us 
better. Could we learn some Arabic ? No, that was 



GOOD ADVICE, 



scarcely possible, but Ibrahim had some Italian, and would 
find it if we proved ourselves his masters \ and if we 
changed^ we might not do so for the better. On peut lien 
changer un borgne pour un boiteux. After giving this 
advice, M. B. made us a list of the prices current both 
in Upper and Lower Egypt, of a number of things in 
common use — such as eggs, chickens, mutton, and turkeys; 
and he counselled us to make the most of this information, 
and where it failed, to follow Ibrahim's example, and to 
act as if it was all-sufficient. The advice was good, and 
we took it thankfully. 



CHAPTEE III. 



THE FIT OUT. 

The next two days were spent in fitting out and victual- 
ling the ship. The donkeys came and went without 
cessation. Grirghis spent the morning in buying a beefsteak 
for luncheon, and the afternoon in finding a chicken 
and some fish for dinner. C. rode in on a donkey, followed 
by Ibrahim on another, and came back in a carriage full 
of odds and ends, with Ibrahim on the box. I passed 
the time on board with the one or two of the crew who 
were not at the coffee-shops, and took from them my first 
lessons in Arabic. 

It is no easy thing to fit out for a voyage into a strange 
land for those whose housekeeping experiences have been 
hitherto made with butchers, bakers, and grocers in the 
next street. Murray gives, in his " Handbook to Egypt/'' 
a good deal of information, but he does not give much 
that one also wants to know. For the vast majority of 
English travellers, who have a dragoman, such details are 
of no importance. It is the dragoman's business to find 
a sufficiency of all supplies, and to know what will and 
what will not be required. "We had to do our own work, 
and it was not a very simple task. All difficulty could, 
it was true, be got over by taking everything in large 
quantities \ but this was not an economic solution of the 



LIST OF PROVISIONS. 



17 



problem. We had, therefore, made some time before a 
list of the things we should, as we thought, certainly 
require, calculated the quantities probably necessary, and 
had ordered them to be sent from England per Peninsular 
and Oriental steamer. This list we now . supplemented 
by purchases at Alexandria; and we give the outfit 
in detail, for the benefit of any reader who may start, as 
we did, on the Nile without a dragoman. 



Arrowroot ... 

Barley, pearl 

Biscuits — 

2 tins Albert's 

2 tins digestive do 

4 tins captain 

4 tins cabin 

2 tins brown college 

2 tins spice nuts 

Bacon in tins ... 

Bath chops 

Butter 

Paraffin candles 

Composite do., for lanterns 

Capers 

Chutnee 

Currie powder 

Cheese 

Extractum Carnis (Liebig) 

Hams 

Jams and jellies — 

12 assorted jams 

Eed currant jelly 

Dundee marmalade 

Preserved Meats — 

Beef, mutton, and jugged hare 

Mustard 

French do 



2 lbs. 
8 lbs. 



-2-lb. tins. 



18 lbs. 
2. 

4 5-lb. jars. 
30 lbs. 
20 lbs. 
1 pint. 
2^ pints. 

1 pint bottle, 
10 lbs. 

8 \-\h. jars. 

2 small. 

1-lb. jars. 
2 1-lb. jars. 
12 1-lb. tins. 

18 1 & 2-lb. tins. 
1-lb. tin. 
1 small jar. 





1 8 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



Scotch oatmeal ... ... 


... 3 4-lb. tins. 


Olives, French ... 


... 2 pint bottles. 


Oil, salad , 


... 2 pint bottles. 


Pepper . ... 


... 1-lb. bottle. 


Peas, split 


... 1 7-lb. tin. 


Soups 


... 30 1-lb. tins. 


Preserved Vegetables — Green peas ,.. 


... 18 1-lb. tins. 


Macedoines (mixed vegetables) 


lo 1-iD. tins. 


Harvey sauce 


... 2 ^-pint bottles. 


Soap ... ... 


... 12 tablets. 


Starch, Glenfield 


... 1 4-lb. tin. 


Tongues 


... 4. 


Tea 


... 6 lbs. 


Vinegar, raspberry ... 


... 6 ^-pint bottles. 



Tlie provisions enumerated above were amply sufficient 
for ourselves and two servants, for a voyage that lasted 
nearly five months. There was more than enough, indeed, 
of some of the items, as, for instance, the biscuits; 
whilst others were nearly useless, e.g., the preserved 
meats. Still the biscuits were a most welcome small 
" backshish " to our crew (An Arab is a perfect child, and 
loves something to eat, especially something that is new.), 
and the tinned beef and mutton made us independent of 
markets, and so enabled us to upset a dozen little plots of 
our people to stop for provisions at this or that village 
when they wished for a halt. The great proportion of 
our stores were sent, as I have said, from London ; and 
for those who can despatch them sufficiently beforehand, 
such a plan is the best. One is certain that the provisions 
will be good. The freight is ridiculously cheap. But 
it is not necessary to be so provident, for at the shops 
in Alexandria would be found everything asked for ; and 



WINE,— COFFEE. 



19 



some tilings will, of course, be bought better there than 
in England, as flour, coffee, rice, macaroni, sugar, and 
common soap. The two last indeed may be bought 
everywhere. 

Wine may also, be bought of every description at 
Alexandria. But I was not lucky enough to get any 
Bordeaux either there or at Cairo. The wines sent 
us came not from the Medoc but from the Grave and 
Rhone districts. In laying in a supply, it should be 
remembered that the climate of Egypt requires light 
wines. I did not use half as much there as in Eng- 
land; the wine I drank was invariably mixed with 
sodawater, and I thirsted for a light Ehine wine, for 
the Austrian Mailberger or Gumpoldskirchner, or, better 
still, the light white Tisch wine one finds at Pesth, 
and drinks on the Lower Danube. We bought at 
Alexandria a sodawater-making machine, and it was a 
very great comfort ; but the drink of drinks on the Nile 
is the native stimulant, coffee, Both at Cairo and 
Alexandria most excellent coffee may be obtained ; the 
green berry of Cairo has the highest repute, but we 
preferred the Alexandrian. The coffee of the East is a 
very different beverage from the decoction as a rule put 
up with in England. The berry is of much finer quality; 
and pounded, not ground; the coffee is made in two or three 
minutes, and served, grounds and all. The first day or 
two we were disposed to find fault with the thick potion ; 
but the fine flavour and happy absence of the oily bitter 

c 2 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



taste that is produced by slow making, and is so frequently 
found in European coffee, soon reconciled us to the unac- 
customed grits; and before ten days were over, we surprised 
each other eating these very grits with a spoon, in true 
Arab fashion. So excellent is the coffee, and so sympa- 
thetic with the cliniate, that we drank too much of it, 
and found it necessary for health's sake to abandon our 
European cups for native ones of egg-shell size, and even 
to limit these in number. 

To be in a well-provisioned ship adds, no doubt, greatly 
to one's comfort, but one is by no means dependent upon 
the stores taken on board. At all the large towns on 
the river bank weekly markets are held, and we constantly 
stopped for them, as much for the amusement as for the 
supplies they afforded. 

Beef, can only be obtained at Alexandria and Cairo. 
Preserved soups and a good supply of Liebig's extract 
of meat for stock are therefore necessary. Teal can be 
only occasionally met with \ but mutton of fair quality, 
good chickens and geese, pigeons and turkeys beyond 
praise, can be always obtained below Assouan. During 
the fast of Eamadan only had we any difficulty in getting 
fresh provisions. At that season the meat is always 
killed after sunset ; and that which is killed is consumed 
by the hungry true believers. Vegetables are scarce and 
not good. Cabbage may now and then be obtained ; a 
very small, but not very good, broad bean; a lettuce 
resembling dandelion, and cucumbers after Christmas. 



VEGE TABLES. —MILK. 



2 I 



We tried several oilier kinds that are eaten by the 
natives, but we never asked for them a second time. 
The one vegetable of Egypt is the onion : they are to be 
found everywhere in profusion, and are the least strong 
and the best in the world. Oranges and lemons should 
be laid in at Cairo : higher up they are scarce ; and the 
blood oranges of Cairo are excellent. The only other 
fruits in season during the winter are bananas (rarely met 
with), a kind of very small crab apple called "nabuk/' and 
fresh dates. Dates were just ripe at the time of our arrival, 
and we ate them every day whilst they lasted. But this 
was. unfortunatelv, not more than a fortnight. The fresh 
date has very little resemblance to the dried fruit we 
know in England, — juicy and crisp, fresh to the taste, 
and not too sweet, in consistency, though not in flavour, 
it is like a good apple. Butter of more or less inferior 
quality may be always bought. It is generally fresh, but 
so badly made as to be only fit for cooking; and we 
found it best to buy it in a clarified state. Eeally good 
fresh butter may, however, be occasionally obtained. 

With milk we were always well supplied. Though 
cows of EurojDean breeds are at the present time scarce, 
owing to the frightful cattle pestilences that have caused 
incalculable mischief from time to time to Egypt, the 
buffalo has been nearly always exempt from disease ; 
and no village is without its proportion of these hardy, 
useful, and absolutely hideous beasts. The Egyptian 
buffalo must surely be antediluvian, a cousin of the mam- 



22 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



moths that the spirited and imaginative managers of 
the Crystal Palace have made familiar to our eves. On 
its whole carcase ugliness reigns supreme. The upturned 
face, as the nose is thrust forward and carried level with 
the forehead ; the huge bones, and still more monstrous 
joints; the ungainly walk, stupid look, and thick, dull, 
dark hide, whose shining skin is specked with bristles, 
make the animal truly frightful. But the milk, though 
slightly inclined to be greasy, is rich, and with morning 
coffee or tea excellent. 

It is well to assign to one of the crew the duty of get- 
ting every morning the day's supply. For this purpose 
he should land before the dahabeah is got underweigh • 
and in the event of an early start, should go ashore in the 
small boat, and catch up the vessel with as slight delay 
to her as possible. There is sometimes a little trouble 
about these arrangements, and the milk is not cheap. 
For the trouble's sake, therefore, the crew do not like it, 
nor for the money's worth does the dragoman ; and we 
frequently saw one or two goats carried with the other 
live-stock of a dahabeah. The travellers who submitted 
to this probably were told, and believed, that milk was 
difficult to get, or did not like the mixture they had been 
made to taste as buffalo milk. 

Eggs below Assouan are always plentiful, fresh, and 
cheap. Bread of by no means bad quality can be bought 
at all the large towns. At Cairo and Luxor we found it 
particularly good. But we were fortunate in our cook. 



FLOUR.— FISH. 



23 



Girghis was a most excellent baker, and we ordinarily 
ate home-made bread. Nothing could be better than the 
Trieste flour we bought at Alexandria. So thought too 
our servants. They would have had us lay three barrels in 
stock instead of the one that we found to be amply suffi- 
cient ; and Ibrahim, on one occasion, made an attack 
upon it. White flour to Arabs is an irresistible tempta- 
tion. Habitually living on the best of breads, — that made 
of the whole flour, — white bread is to them a much coveted 
luxury. With an Arab, to covet is to endeavour to 
obtain. With an Arab, also, to give is almost as strong 
a passion as to appropriate. It can scarcely, therefore, 
be wondered at, that the much-desired and easily-got- 
at flour not unfrequently fills the tied-up sleeve or knot- 
ted corner of the friends of one's servants' blue cotton 
gowns. 

The fish of the Nile is plentiful, of many kinds, and 
bad. The temperature of the water is, in truth, too high 
to produce good fish. Has not nature, by the way, some- 
what, in the matter of fish, departed from the harmony of 
her wisdom and the economy of her laws ? It is in hot 
climates that the lighter articles of diet are the most 
acceptable ; that man's stomach, turning away from beef 
and mutton, will face poultry and show a bold front to 
fish. Is it not in the dog-days that we go to Greenwich ? 
And yet, as the temperature of a climate increases, the 
quality of the fish deteriorates. It is true that the whale 
of the Arctic regions, if that mammal can be called fish, the 



24 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



herring and the salmon, both north country fishes, yield 
when eaten a large amount of fat or animal heat, so that 
the fish found in northern zones are the best suited for 
man's necessities there ; but the fact remains, that in the 
climates where fish would be the most acceptable it is 
the least good. 

Last in this list of kitchen supplies, but by no means 
least in importance, comes fuel. Wood is very scarce 
in Egypt, and it may be generally stated that the higher 
you go the scarcer it is. It is best, therefore, to lay 
in as large a supply at Alexandria (if fitting out be 
there possible) as the dahabeah will hold. We took with us 
sufficient for our whole voyage ; no very great quantity, 
as it is only used for baking and washing. Charcoal 
serves every other fuel purpose. It is as cheap and far 
better at Alexandria than anywhere else in Egypt, but a 
failing store may be almost anywhere supplemented. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FRESH PROVISIONS. MONEY. 

It will have been seen by the preceding chapter, that 
there is no risk of short commons on the Nile. But some 
little foresight is required on the part of the commissary 
general, whoever he may be. There are plenty of mar- 
kets, and the markets are well supplied ; but it is not 
always possible to arrive at any particular village on the 
market-day; and to wait even a day for the market is, if 
a fair breeze be blowing, not possible at all. Every 
dahabeah, therefore, carries her stock of fresh, as well as 
preserved, provisions. For this purpose the felucca, or 
small boat, is often turned into a sheepfold; and a 
number of chicken- and turkey-coops are provided. We 
shall so frequently refer to our farm, that I shall say no 
more on this subject now, except to notice that it is in 
Middle Upper Egypt, say from above Sioot to Esne, that 
the poultry is the cheapest and the best ; consequently it 
is in that district that the coops should be filled, both 
in going up and in coming down. 

But it will probably be convenient that I should give, 
before leaving the subject of fitting out, some idea of the 
prices paid for the chief articles of consumption, and of 
the relative value and currency of money on the Nile. 



26 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN, 



Place a I' argent ! Money in Egypt has two values — 
tariff and currency. We need only trouble ourselves with 
this last. In Alexandria no coin is refused ; most are in 
common circulation ; and nearly all can be used in pur- 
chases, or changed into piastres at a price approximating 
to their relative value. At Cairo foreign coin is less easily 
converted ; and in Upper Egypt, the native 1 and 2 piastre 
silver or copper pieces are by far the most convenient 
change. Other small coin, will be often received at only 
half its value. But gold will always command its full 
price. At Keneh, Luxor, Esne, and Assouan, our 
Napoleons brought from 162 to 165 piastres; at Cairo only 
155 ; and at Alexandria, 160. The average value, there- 
fore, of piastres was, in 1869-70, at the rate of 8 for a 
franc or 10 for a shilling. The exchange, however, varies 
in a greater degree than in European countries, but the 
variation is in a very uniform direction, and is caused by 
an almost continuous decrease in the value of piastres. 

There are two issues of silver, 1 and 2 piastre-pieces, in 
common circulation. Both pass equally well in Egypt, 
Upper and Lower ; but in Nubia, only the coin that has no 
wreath on its face is received. Both in Nubia and in Egypt 
prices are oftenfixed and value estimatedat so many taralies. 
The term taralie is equally applied to five-franc pieces and 
the old dollar of Maria Theresa. These last coins, of a par- 
ticular issue, are of the two, however, somewhat more valu- 
able when they are changed into piastres. But change is not 
always to be obtained ; and if required, will have to be 



RATE OF EXCHANGE. 



27 



paid for at a price proportionate to the necessity of the 
requirement. Gold, as already shown, is worth more in 
Upper than in Lower Egypt ; nevertheless, some friends 
of ours received there, from their dragoman, only 100 
piastres per £1, just half the value. " Un honnete homme, 
tin honnete homme pour eviter des desagremens" should 
make himself independent of his servants and the money- 
changers, and take from Alexandria, or even from Cairo, 
notwithstanding its lower rate of exchange, not less than 
£50 or £60 worth of silver piastres and taralies. Then 
only will it be with him as it was with us, both in the 
matter of money and of meat. If mutton was offered us 
at double the price we knew it should be, we produced 
from our stores tins of that horrid abomination known as 
preserved beef; and immediately the meat fell to its 
market price. If our gold was lightly valued, we brought 
out from our sack a handful of silver, with a similar (to 
us) happy result. 

Living in Egypt is exceedingly cheap ; that is to say, 
it should be so, but the price per head per day charged 
by the dragoman, or the estimate made of the cost per 
month, is always absurdly high and often exorbitant. Nor 
is it probable that the traveller without a dragoman would 
fare better at the hands of his cook, or other servant em- 
ployed to cater for him, if he were ignorant of the prices 
of the country. We found the information kindly given 
us by M. B. of so much service, that we now name the 
prices at which we bought the principal articles of food. 



2 5 THE XI EE J J 'IT HO UT A ERA GO MA X. 



At Alexandria and Cairo provisions are not much cheaper 
than in the average of European capitals. Meat is sold by 
the oka = 2|lb. English. Beef (the best part] was 20 
piastres the oka; mutton, about 14. Chickens. 7 to 10 
each. Below Cairo, mutton was about 12 piastres the 
oka. In Cairo, and from thence up through Egypt, the 
weight generally, if not always, used is the ratali, an 
ounce more than an English lb. Beef above Cairo is very 
rarely seen ; we only met with it once. Teal can be 
found sometimes, and bought at about 3 or 4 piastres the 
ratali. Mutton varies from 5 to 8 piastres the ratali ; 
chickens, from 8 to 5 apiece; geese, 12 to 14 j turkeys, 
from 16 to 25. The huge turkeycocks are worth from 
35 to 45 apiece; but we had too much respect for our 
quiet and digestion to buy them ; and, except on one 
occasion, we confined ourselves to the hens and poults. 
For this temporary aberration of reason we suffered 
severelv. Wishing to follow the excellent custom of the 
country, and to take something from Upper Egypt to 
our friends in Alexandria, we added to our hen flock a 
most magnificent gobble-gobble. He weighed half as 
much as a donkey, was beautiful to look at, and awful to 
listen to. If let loose, he strutted, chuckled, and gobbled 
unceasingly ; if tied up he did just the same, without the 
strut; and loose or tied, he managed- to keep our poultry 
in continual motion, afed ourselves in a nervous fever. I 
am not of a bloodthirsty disposition, but it was with 
unmixed satisfaction that I saw him led away to his fate, 



BACKSHISH. 29 

* 

and knew that his positively last appearance would be 
very shortly made at a christening feast. 

No estimate of the expense of life in Egypt would be 
at all complete without a due reference to backshish. 
Indeed I am not sure but that the very first page should 
commence a treatise on the subject. Backshish is the 
first word that meets the ear on landing in the country ; 
it is the last that salutes it on leaving. The cry of back- 
shish pelts one at Alexandria and at Cairo. "When the 
dahabeah is moored, it is thrown in at the window ; when 
sailing, it follows in her wake, skimming over the surface 
of the water. Land, and it confronts you at the gates of 
the temples, in the recesses of the caves, and becomes 
deafening at the Pyramids, the Cataracts, and Wadi 
Half eh. As you dream at Philas it taps your shoulder 
with a book, full of written testimonials that the intruder 
always demands it. Eat and it disturbs you • sleep and 
it wakes you ; walk, it fills the path ; ride and it floats in 
the very dust you disturb. Throw yourself down at the 
verge of the desert, and as you meditate on the silence 
and the solitude, " backshish" will steal from behind your 
palm-tree shelter, or drop rustling from its top. It is a 
bore from which there is no escape. Eide fast, and it has 
a donkey to keep up with you. Keep your dahabeah in the 
middle of the Kile, and a boat with " backshish" for its 
freight comes alongside, and catches at your gunwale, or 
the dripping bearer of the cry climbs naked on the deck. 

But backshish is not a mere bore, for it is the 



30 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 

motive power of Egypt. The mechanist, who with 
a lever would move the earth, could with backshish 
turn Egypt upside down, or put a girdle round 
her deserts with the Nile. It is the " stick that beat 
the pig that wouldn't get over the stile ; " and ex- 
cept by its use, the cleverest old woman would never 
get home. It lifts the arm that holds the whip that 
whollops the donkey that carries you. It greases the 
hand that holds the key that opens the locks that bar 
the Nile that floats you. It admits you through the 
portals of the custom-house, and passes you out with a 
kindly wish. It makes your stay in Egypt agreeable, 
and smooths every difficulty, social, political, or official. 
By its help, in spite of calms, your boat will stem the 
strong current of the river, and breast the cataract, or 
even, miracle of miracles ! turn the native mind and action 
out of the path it has pursued for centuries. 

But this potent djin must be used with discretion, or it 
will turn and rend you. Give when it is customary to give, 
and on the scale that is sanctioned by long use, and you 
will be respected and liked. Give too often, inoppor- 
tunely, or in excess, and it were better for you not to 
give at all. Should you err in this direction at any town 
or village you pass, leave it, and do not stop there on 
your return. Tour fault will follow you to the next village 
and the next ; and unless you repent you thoroughly, you 
will not outlive its remembrance. If, however, your mis- 
take is committed on board, you will have sown a crop of 



MANNER OF GIVING. 31 

discontent very hard to root out, and a strong will only 
can save you from great discomfort; or perhaps a mutiny. 
Common sense will here as ever point out that middle 
path so safe to travel in, so easy to stray from ; and by 
the observance of two simple rules, backshish may be 
made an useful servant. Never give except where an 
extra service justifies, or custom prescribes the gift. 
Remember that piastres are not as common in Egypt 
as pennies in England. 

In former days Murray tells us that it was the habit in 
going up to give the crew a sheep at the large towns. 
Sheep were then sold at 5 francs each. Now it is more 
common to give money than mutton. Prescription gives 
the crew, if not badly behaved, a quasi right, which no 
one would wish to dispute, to some 8 or 10 francs a head 
during the voyage. The steersman should have half as 
much again, or twice as much if he does his work par- 
ticularly well ; and the reis claims with justice the share 
of three men, and often appropriates half of the whole 
backshish given. Taking the sum mentioned above as 
the mean, it should be diminished or increased in 
reason, as the work is light or heavy, and is ill or well 
done. About half the amount should, when all goes 
smoothly, be given during the voyage up ; the halts 
made at any of the large towns for sightseeing or 
breadmaking being chosen as occasions for a pre- 
sent. The remaining moiety will be expected when the 
ship is paid off. The money for the crew should be given 



32 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



to tlie crew, in such, a way as will insure to at least 
several of them tlie knowledge of the sum given. Arab 
hands have a tight grasp, and coin slips with difficulty 
through their fingers. 



CHAPTER V. 



ALEXANDRIA TO HEAD OF DELTA. 

During the three days our fitting-out detained us at 
Alexandria the weather was broken, but the morning of 
the 21st November was a brilliant one. The air was 
fresh and calm, the sun shone as it knows how to shine 
in Egypt, and my acquaintances of the canal made their 
toilet. The ducks plumed themselves in the muddy 
water, the buffalo cow and calf took their bath, and 
our Arab sailors changed their bedraggled cottons. 
After the delay inseparable from a start in the East, the 
last odds and ends were got on board, and it was with a light 
heart that we saw our orders to cast off carried out about 
noon. The trinkeet was loosened, but there was no air to 
fill it, and we commenced our journey with the tow-rope. 
The men leapt ashore with yells, meant to express the 
delight they did not feel at leaving their coffee shops, and 
the dislike they had not of the delay they had caused. 
Like the hare starting for his race with the tortoise, we 
went off with a rush. The boat was tracked along at a 
trot ; in a minute we turned the odious mud corner that 
had so long tantalized my eyes, thirsting for a view, and 
found ourselves among the garden-surrounded villas, 
which for a mile or so front the banks of this part of the 
* canal. Sweetly pretty they looked. Their white faces 

D 



34 THE XILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



green-blinded and becreepered. The plants covered with 
flowers and the palms with fruit. 

We soon passed them with their neighbourly lines of 
sycamores, and the unadorned ugliness of the country 
confronted us. But we were in luck. Before the 
men were tired of their frolic, a breeze sprang up, our 
sail filled, and, as the boat ran up to them, they jumped 
on board, screaming with joy as one of their number, an 
old fellow who was beat by the pace, slipped in springing 
from the bank, and fell into the water. An Arab bears 
his own misfortune well, but takes a genuine and uncon- 
cealed pleasure in that of his fellows. 

The Mahmoudeeh Canal constructed by Mohammed Ali 
in 1819-20, is a straight water-way with a bend in it, 
running from Alexandria to Atfeh, a village on the Eosetta 
branch of the Xile. It is forty-two miles in length, some 
twenty yards in breadth, of a not very varying depth of 
about four feet, and of uniform ugliness. Twenty thousand 
men are said to have contributed with their bones to the 
formation of its banks. Poor fellows ! they have found a 
plain resting-place, and do not seem to have agreed with 
the soil. The mud still lies in little heaps on either 
side, retaining almost the shape given it as it fell from 
the shovels, sacks, and baskets which carried it from 
the bed of the canal. Grass does not grow on it, weeds 
cover it barely, and the unshod feet of the men or donkeys 
which pass over it have had no power to fashion and shape 
the uneven surface. We passed a few villages, the first ' 



A VILLAGE. 



35 



wearing a pretentious suburban air, the reflection as it 
were of its big neighbour; and then we came to an 
Egyptian fellaheen village, pur et simple. Built of 
mud, and crowded on to the canal, the tiny hovels stood 
like a number of toadstools of unequal size and no stalks, 
each cropping out where it could push its way among its 
fellows. Many were as shapeless as a Connemara cottage, 
others were capped by lilliputian domes, or had toy pigeon- 
houses sprouting from their sides and tops ; and on 
one an attempt at primeval decoration had been made 
with about a pint of whitewash. Each and all were 
swarming with life; children and cats disputed the door- 
ways with the chickens and geese, and a similar mimic 
strife was waged by the goats and dogs on the house- 
tops. 

That night we slept at Birket, a village of the same 
character ; and the next day a light and variable wind 
brought us, with the aid of the tow-rope, to Atfeh. All 
impatient for our first view of the Nile, we gave orders 
for an early start, but the lock gates, which give access 
to the river, though of European construction, had 
Egyptian officials for their keepers. We had to deal, 
however, in this instance, with men of sense ; people who 
understood their own interest, and valued it, Easterns 
though they were, even higher than their importance ; so 
that, after an hour or two's delay, the gates were opened. 
Way was made for us through the crowd of native boats, 
waiting like ourselves, only with more patience, and in. 

d 2 



36 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



a few minutes more we had our first glimpse of the Nile. 
I looked out aghast ! Could it be possible that we had 
undertaken to stem for near one thousand miles that 
turbid, swirling river, whose heavy stream, as it caught 
the bow of our dahabeah, now passing out of the lock- 
cut, threatened to carry us to the sea. 

We were only in a branch of a branch of the main 
river, but it was three times as big, and looked as swollen 
and heavy as the largest of English rivers in a winter 
flood. Fortunately we had a warp out, which checked 
the rush we were making across the stream, and in time 
brought us back and alongside the bank we had quitted. 
There we remained, for half a gale quickly sprang up, 
and it took twenty men to warp us a hundred yards 
against wind and current into a small bight that afforded 
partial protection. 

The next morning the wind moderated sufficiently to 
enable us to reach Fouah, two miles distant, a very old, 
and once well-to-do, town. Its buildings are above the 
average in solidity and taste, and close above us hung 
a projecting window, whose light and quaint wooden 
framework, and dainty lace-like lattices, I longed to buy 
and carry home. Here we were detained by the in- 
creasing force of the breeze for several hours, and 
given ample opportunity to make acquaintance with 
the customs, sometimes cleanly, and the manners, cer- 
tainly startling, of the natives. The banks of the Nile 
are resorted to for every sort of purpose, and the people 



OPHTHALMIA. 



57 



of the Delta are far more primitive than those of Upper 
Egypt. The family linen, the family pots and pans, and 
the family itself, came or were carried to the river, and 
were all washed together. One hollow in the bank was 
being used as a mosque. In another two fellahs were 
gravely shaving each other, after the Eastern or thorough 
fashion. 

The children looking at us had a black half-circle 
under their eyes. At first we thought that the shade 
was an effort at decoration, made by some vain mother, 
whose dye was dark, and brush a feather. But when a 
child came near, a fringe of flies was seen, ranged like 
pigs at a trough ; their sides pressed together, heads on 
the lower eyelid, and tails on the cheek. Some cruel 
superstition forbids the Egyptian mother to brush the 
flies from her infant's face ; and before the poor little 
wretches can protect themselves, their eyes become so 
accustomed to be fed on, that they rarely lift a hand to 
drive the flies away. 

The causes of ophthalmia are often discussed, and the 
palm for mischief is sometimes awarded to the hot desert 
sand ; sometimes to the cold night air ; or, in Cairo, to 
the rapid evaporation produced by the great heat on the 
constantly watered streets. But surely the fly scavenger 
of the unwashed children's eyes must be a much more 
frequent conveyor of the poison. I have often felt one 
of these horrid insects settle on my face, and with a creep 
that made me shudder, run towards my eye. 



38 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



In the afternoon, tlie wind shifting a little to the east, 
we fonnd that if we could get hauled round the bight in 
which Fouah stands, we should be able to use our sails ; 
and the hawsers were got out with the purpose of warping 
us round that part of the bend, about a hundred and fifty 
yards long, down which the wind headed us. We now 
had our first experience of Arab boatmen's skill and 
tactics. There were two ways of proceeding. To haul 
the boat round the bank at which we lay was one, and it 
looked simple to adopt, but from the combined strength 
of the opposing wind and current it was almost impossi- 
ble to execute. The other, to warp across into some 
dead water at the bank of an opposite island, entailed 
some trouble, but was perfectly easy. The reis, however, 
would not hear of it. Was not this bank here under his 
foot, and the other bank across the river ; was it not easy 
to walk with the hawser along this bank, hard to row 
with it to the other across ? To haul the dahabeah ahead it 
was necessary to fix the hawser — good ; but was it not 
better to fix it where it could easiest be fixed ? When 
that was done, if Allah willed it, we should get on ; if he 
did not so will, why — and here bowing his head in token 
of submission to Allah's will, he gave orders to take the 
rope ahead. So it was made fast where it was most easy 
to make it fast, and no use when fastened, and we 
wasted two hours. At the end of that time, the reis 
acting on the submission he had expressed, gave up 
the attempt to get forward. We then insisted on the 



AGRICULTURE. 



59 



rope being sent across, and in a quarter of an hour we 
had rounded the corner, and were tearing along with 
quite as much wind in our sails as was pleasant. 

The next day or two added to our experience of the 
way Arab, but produced no incident much worth record- 
ing. The wind was contrary or light, but the climate 
was delightful ; the Nile was unusually high, and the 
strong stream forbad much progress, but we were rich in 
time ; the distance traversed and the change of scene were 
small, but then everything we saw was new and fall of 
interest. On the land the fellaheen, were busy. At one 
spot a man was sowing, ankle-deep in mud. Father Nile, 
with most paternal care, had prepared his ground, and had 
just run quietly off, leaving a smooth and weedless black 
surface ready to the peasant's hand. No model farm, 
stocked with sheep and bullocks, and supplied with all 
the patent machines, the pride of agricultural shows, ever 
left a field so rich and ripe for seed. On a little higher 
land, above the river's rise, a plough was at work whose 
shape some ancient picture-book of Biblical stories had 
made familiar to us. It was drawn by a huge, gaunt 
camel and a donkey, looking, by comparison perhaps, 
scarce the size of life. The donkey had found a com- 
panion more stubborn than himself, and for once the 
freely given blows fell not on him. The camel moved 
like a clock not wound up, with a stick for a pendulum ; 
so long as the stick rose and fell he moved : a blow for a 
step, a savage grunt for a blow, and then a stop. On the 



40 THE NILE WITHOUT A ERA GO MAX. 



river were numbers of native boats full of "notions " for 
sale at Alexandria. Old beyond calculation in shape,, and 
often in material, they were new to us, like the jokes in 
the " Tin Trumpet " that excellent predecessor of Joe 
Miller, for their very age's sake. 

On the evening of the 26th we reached Kafre Zayat, 
about half way to Cairo. The railway from Alexandria 
here crosses the Xile on a bridge handsome by reason of 
its solidity. Y\Tien the Xile is high there is no room for 
boats of any size to pass under it, and an arch, resting on 
a turn-table^ can be swung aside when it is necessary to 
open the waterway. The whole of the next day we were 
detained below the bridge, as it did not please the rail- 
way officials to permit the opening of the gate. It was 
not their custom to do so, we were told, unless there hap- 
pened to be a good upstream breeze. "Without such a 
wind the passage of the boats took a long time, and the 
railway might be blocked for an hour or more. The 
weather had been calm, and the bridge had consequently 
remained closed already for one or two days, so that there 
were collected above and below a fleet of perhaps 150 
native boats of all sizes. The day was consumed in civil 
remonstrances on our part at the detention, and by dint 
of letters, messages, and backshish, we extracted a 
promise that on the morrow's morning, wind or no wind, 
we should be let through. 

The next morning, having paid our toll, we were gratified 
by seeing the arch turning on the axis of one of the iron 



BUNGLING. 



4i 



pillars that supported it, until it lay up and down instead of 
across the river. There were some twenty or thirty boats 
between us and the bridge, and as the morning was cahn, 
hawsers, made fast above bridge, were passed along these, 
and we all hung attached to the hawsers like onions on a 
string. Authority is wonderfully obeyed in Egypt, and 
though every man continuously yelled, not a boat moved 
till the kaftan gave his orders. Then with a fearful clam- 
our hundreds of men set to work together, and the arch, 
perhaps twenty yards broad, was filled with boats. Grinding 
along the iron sides of the bridge, and bumping against 
each other, the craft were painfully hauled through. As 
we passed up and cleared the arch, our crew, with true 
Arab clumsiness, ceased to haul just too soon, and the 
strong stream catching the boat, dashed her against the 
bridge with a crash that threatened to break her to pieces. 
The kaftan, however, probably well used to such small 
accidents, was ready with his men, and thirty or forty 
pair of arms and legs pushed and kicked us off the pier- 
head on which we rested. No sooner were we safe than the 
big gate swung again upon its pivot, and the many hapless 
traders above and below were left to wait for some future 
season more convenient to the railway for its opening. 

We made fast to talk over and repair the damages 
we had not sustained, and had hardly got under weigh 
again to slowly and painfully track up stream, when 
a strong W.N.W. wind came up with a sudden 
gust. With ready will our men dropped the tow-rope. 



42 THE XILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN.. 



and plunged through the mud and water to gain the 
dahabeah. In a few minutes our sails were loosened, and 
we rushing up the river. The quantity of canvas car- 
ried by a dahabeah does not make sailing in a strong wind, 
unless the boat be a large one, always agreeable. The 
breeze is often puffy, the lateen sail, with its enormous 
yard, is difficult to manage, and the men are awkward. 
They are, however, very timid ; and though this quality 
renders them perfectly useless when an accident does 
occur, it makes them take pains that none should happen. 
The sheet of the mainsail is never made fast; in fine weather 
one man, in rough winds two, three, or even four men, 
hold it. It is the duty of the steersman, who, from his 
commanding position on the upper deck, has a good view 
all round, to watch if any squall be coming up, and to 
order the slackening or letting fly of the sheet. This he 
is ever ready to do, and with a strong wind the cry from 
him of ^karlez " (ready) with its echoed "liarlez" from 
the men, is almost constant. We carried the breeze 
with us till 7 p.m., when it failed, and we made fast for 
the night, thirty-eight miles from the spot we had left at 
noon — a rate of speed we seldom equalled. Five miles 
an hour, though not much in dead water, is, against such 
a stream as that of the Nile, very quick travelling. 

A little above the point now reached, we had our first 
view of the desert. Not the desert we had seen in our 
dreams, or in pictures, nor yet the desert we were to see in 
Upper Egypt : but a scene of some animation and much 



THE DESERT. 



43 



beauty. As we ran up a straight reach that measured 
perhaps two miles in length, but which from its breadth did 
not appear more than half that size, we passed between a 
waste on the right hand, and highly cultivated land on the 
other. Here men were working at their crops; there a herd 
of camels were browsing on the parched scant herbage ; 
and large flocks of pelicans, wild geese, and ducks floated 
in the air, or dashed into the water. For the first time 
we saw the pelican of the desert, and the white stork of 
Egypt. Even the wild geese and duck were new to us 
in their habits and numbers, for we had never before 
seen them in such thousands, or so fearless of man. 

In front of us the river took a somewhat abrupt bend 
to the left, and this bend, both on the bank and inland, 
was thickly studded with groves of tall wavy palms and 
of huge spreading sycamores. On the right of us the 
desert came down to the river's edge, and the tiny 
wavelets of sand driven by the breeze fell on the very 
water. A short distance, perhaps a mile, inland the ground 
rose, and the view was shut in by an undulating line 
of hills and slopes. This ridge was peculiar and very 
rich in colour. The bright golden undertone of sand 
was at once sobered and enriched by lines of purple 
brown, thick and thin, straight and curved, running and 
crossing in all directions, freely dashed on by nature's 
pencil. Thus the small hollows and gentle swells were 
sharply marked out and defined; and extent, as well as 
richness of colouring, was given to a narrow strip of 



44 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



barren waste. Between tlie ridge of hills on the right, 
and the woods on the left, there lay straight before us a 
debateable land. There war was constantly carried on ; 
war none the less deadly that it was silent- — and the fertile 
soil of Egypt struggled with the arid desert — life with 
death — for mastery of the plain. Of grass and herbage 
there was none; but next the wood, the big trees stood 
in clumps, then in pairs ; and further out alone,, — out- 
posts, as it were of the host to which they belonged. 
Eound them the hot dry sand curled and beat, drifting 
high up their trunks, leaping even into the branches, and 
falling at their feet to suck the moisture from the roots. 
Several times we saw in Upper Egypt palm-trees, 
growing within the margin of the desert ; but this was 
the only place where we met with the huge sycamore 
standing in a sea of sand, and looking like gigantic 
park-trees in England, surrounded by a flood. 

On November 30, the breeze was again strong and 
true, and we had a most enjoyable sail. What in 
nature could be more perfect than was now the Delta ! 
The hot sun, clear and cloudless sky, balmy desert atmo- 
sphere, and crisp refreshing breeze. The dahabeah 
rushed steadily on, breasting the river's stream, rounding 
point after point, and opening at each something new, 
something requiring to be looked at, and passed as soon 
as well seen. A mile or two above Werdan we made the 
Pyramids. Could it be possible that the huge masses 
we so distinctly saw were distant from us nearly twenty 



THE PYRAMIDS. 



45 



miles ! Distance in this country is very hard to judge. 
The clearness of the atmosphere and the strong light, 
combine to deceive the eye by the very power they give 
it. One cannot believe that the man or camel, whose 
moving legs are distinguishable, are perhaps two miles 
away. So was it with us at the Pyramids. Accord- 
ing to our map and compass, eighteen miles of flat 
separated them from us. By our eye, they stood within 
five. 

I am not going to say much about the temples, the anti- 
quities, or the Pyramids of Egypt. What they are, what 
they were, and what they are supposed to have been built 
for, — is this not written in books of travel without number? 
Dry information about them will be found in Murray,— 
all, perhaps, that can be said without drawing on the 
imagination : and my purpose is not to give our impres- 
sion of the lions, but rather an account of the climate, 
the nature of the life led on the Nile, and the means 
by which little men, as well as big ones, may manage to 
enjoy that which we found so perfect. But I must 
notice one feature of the Pyramids of Grhiseh, that took 
us by surprise — I mean their beauty. We had never 
before seen much beauty in the pyramidal form, and 
should probably, if we had thought about it, have denied 
that there could be any. We should have been very 
wrong : there is an unity, harmony, a completeness, 
strength, and perfection of shape in the Great Pyramids, 
that is as admirable as it is wonderful ; and after seeing 



46 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



theni, one ceases to be astonished at tlie ravings written 
about them by some of their admirers. 

The breeze held good as we ran along mile after mile. 
The distance traversed, and the small change to be 
observed in the angle of the faces exposed to us. or in 
the relative position of one pyramid to the other, proved 
the vastness of their size, and the correctness of our maps. 

About 3 p.m.. we reached the Barrage, close ro the head 
of the Delta. Impatient to reach Cairo, we gave little 
observation to this curious weir, and shall leave what we 
have to say about it physically, for our return. A toll 
had to be paid, and we put the reis ashore to pay it. 
There are lock-gates at either side of the river, and he 
was sent to our surprise backwards and forwards from 
one to the other. The dav was waning, the breeze dvino\ 
and we impatient. Unable to stand it, we beckoned 
to an official on the bank close by us, and as Ibrahim 
could not or would not make our meaning plain, we 
tried our hands and tongues at Arabic. The success was 
complete. If our words were few, was not backshish a 
language in itself? If our pronunciation was not 
intelligible, who could misunderstand the jingle of 
piastres ? So in five minutes we were being hauled 
through the lock-gates, both now open, as the level of 
the water above and below the weir was the same. The 
barrier passed, we stopped at the bank to pick up 
the reis, and fulfil our promises. The old man came on 
board, hot with his run, and highly displeased with 



A SUNSET. 



47 



all we had done. His boat had been taken through 
the locks, a most important operation, without his aid. 
Backshish had been given, and had not even touched his 
fingers. Worse still, we seemed, as we were, innocent of 
the injury we had done to his pocket and his pride, and all 
around sailors, kawasses, and idlers were laughing at him. 
Well might his eyes flash, and his moustache curl like 
the pig's tail, so tight that it threatened to lift him off 
the ground. I have heard people doubt, such is the 
want of faith in this material age, that the hair of the 
man who saw the ghost really stood on end. I wish 
they could have seen Eeis Ibrahim in a rage. 

But a gentle air filled our sails, and a cup of coffee 
soothed the flames of his discontent, and all was well with 
us again before we had left the Barrage out of sight. 

O O O 

What a golden evening it was, as reaching the head of 
the Delta, we saw the broad expanse of the whole Nile. 
The water studded with islands, dotted with white lateen 
sails, glowing with the burnished copper a beams of the 
setting sun, and alive with long lines of huge pelicans, 
that, rising heavily at our approach, dropped again in 
our course as if impatient of exertion and careless of 
man. Such an hour is a poem that can never be written : 
a hymn of praise that cannot be sung. 



CHAPTER VI. 



CAIEO. 

With the fading light the evening breeze died away, 
and we brought up for the night at a village four miles 
below Cairo. The next morning, December 1, was 
lovely, calm, and still. The city was within sight, but 
between us and it there was a difficulty to be overcome 
that might detain us for hours or even for days. We were 
on the left bank of the river, Cairo is on the right. Op- 
posite to us was an island, the highest of the chain that 
runs down to the head of the Delta, and consequently 
the first to separate the Nile into the great Damietta 
and Rosetta branches. Unfortunately for the traffic of 
the river, Hamil Pasha had chosen as a site for a large 
palace a spot on the Cairene bank, and so in the Damietta 
branch, a short distance below this island; and Hamil 
Pasha is brother to the viceroy, and therefore was, 
according to the custom of the country, also the vice- 
roy's heir. Rich men do not love their heirs, and the 
power of the Sultan was invoked to deprive Hamil of 
his birthright, whilst the river was pressed into ser- 
vice to uproot his palace. But the Nile was not so 
easily managed as the Porte. The viceroy caused a 
huge stone weir to be constructed just above the point 
of the river's bifurcation, This weir, springing from the 



AN ESCAPE. 



49 



side on which, we lay, runs obliquely down the river's 
course, and extends so far across it as almost to cover the 
head of the Rosetta branch, and to overlap the island. 
It was sought, our people said, by this means to turn the 
whole volume of the Nile into the Damietta channel, and 
so on to Hamil Pasha's palace. 

The work must have cost large sums, but that to the 
Khedive is of small consequence ; it also greatly impedes 
the navigation, a matter to him of no import ; but the 
palace still stands as firm as ever, and this must be very 
annoying. This weir now lay in our course ; the water 
fell over it in a great glassy wave. It was not possible 
to tow over or round it, and there was not wind enough 
to take us across through the heavy stream it caused to 
the other side. We waited, anxiously watching the 
swelling of our sails, and listening to the rustle of the 
palm branches. At last the puffs became a little and a 
little stronger, and grew into a breeze. Towing up to 
the foot of the weir we pushed off and ran along its 
downward-trending face. With a fair breeze and a current, 
which, owing to the diagonal direction of the weir, was 
rather in our favour than opposed to us, we passed 
through some four or five hundred yards of white and 
broken water with speed and ease. But as we neared 
the end of the weir and the head of the island our posi- 
tion became less good. The water fell sideways from the 
Damietta branch into the Eosetta one, whose level was 
unnaturally lowered by the action of the weir, and a 

E 



So THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN, 



fearfully Heavy stream ran from the tail of the weir on to 
the head of the island. So fierce was this current that it had 
washed away in places the stone coating of the island, and 
turned a convex into a concave face. As long as we had 
only to contend with the current running from the weir, 
we held our own and something more, but the moment our 
boat's bow entered the sideway stream she was swept down 
with dangerous violence. Her fate seemed almost deter- 
mined. Driven on to the stonework, she could not have 
escaped. It was only doubtful whether she would have been 
swamped before she was crushed, or crushed before she 
was swamped. The breeze held good, and our sails 
were full, but what avail was this against such a flood 
as was carrying ns backward. Nearer and nearer we 
came to the jagged broken stonework, on which the 
force of the Nile was savagely breaking. The reis stuck 
to the helm, the rest of the crew were paralysed with 
fear. 

An Arab sailor in distress calls for aid to " Said/' 
a very holy man, and a pitiful cry to this Mussulman 
saint went up from our deck. Ibrahim alone had the 
courage, in his ignorance of our danger, to seize a pole 
as if to stave us off, and break the shock that would have 
been our destruction. Of a sudden the boat heeled 
over, the breeze had strengthened, and we stood for a 
moment still in the seething water. Then the boat made 
way, and now advancing, now only holding her own, she 
slowly drew her length, inch by inch, along and away 



REACTION. 



5i 



from the head of the island. Our escape was so nar- 
row, that as we passed into the Daraietta branch, our 
stern and rudder scraped, and hung for an instant upon 
the most upstream blocks of stone. It was but a 
moment, and then the stream caught our broadside and 
swept us down, but on the safe side of the island. What 
a mixed feeling of relief and fear comes over one when a 
danger is passed ! During its actual presence the will 
braces the nerves, and it is not acknowledged, or if 
acknowledged it is faced ; but as soon as it is over, weak 
nature asserts herself. The body makes no effort to 
conceal how much it has endured, and turns hot and 
cold, and even trembles at the very moment the mind 
is rejoicing at the escape. 

Different constitutions give different expressions to 
their feelings. We involuntarily broke out into an 
hurrah as the point was turned, and then submitted 
to the reaction just described. Ibrahim improved the 
occasion by declaring that he had saved us with the 
pole he had not used ; some of the crew laughed like 
children; and the reis, when he recovered his breath, 
burst out into violent protests against our rashness 
in making him attempt so dangerous a passage. I 
could not for some time understand the old man's 
rage, but afterwards had no doubt that Ibrahim, longing 
for the coffee-shops, had ordered him, in our name, to 
get to Cairo, and took care not to translate to us 
the objections he made to the attempt. It was a 

e 2. 



52 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



most dangerous one in the then state of the river, 
except with a strong, fair, and steady breeze : condi- 
tions which, during onr adventure, were not fulfilled. 

We soon made the Cairene shore, but the breeze had 
expended itself in the gust that saved us, and the 
two miles we were distant from the city cost us four 
hours of hard labour. The stream was strong, and 
the bank sometimes ankle, sometimes knee, deep 
in rich alluvial soil, heavily taxed our towing crew. 
The fellaheen were busy on the land, sowing the grain 
broadcast, and it was easy to mark the falling in of 
the inundation by the results of their labour. Close 
to us was the strip, but just bare of water, black and 
shiny in the sun, marked only by the footsteps of the 
sower, and speckled by the grain as it fell from his 
hand. Then a line of yellow, succeeded by one of green, 
and by another and another, each of darker shade, till 
the highest limit of the flood was traced by a brown and 
barren bank. 

We stopped that night at Eamleh, the lower of the 
two Cairo ports ; and finding it horribly noisy, dirty, and 
disagreeable, moved on the next day about three-quarters 
of a mile to the upper port, Boulak. Cairo stands on a 
hill, about a mile from the Nile, and the bank for nearly 
two miles is almost a continuous line of river shipping. 
Eamleh is the boat-building and repairing quarter, the 
docks of Egypt. Boulak is the port proper, where mer- 
chandise is taken in and discharged. It is difficult to 



THE PORTS OF CAIRO. 



53 



say which is the most unpleasant to remain in. If the 
noise is greater at Kainleh, the smells of Boulak are 
unequalled, and the sights of both are neither to be 
remembered or described. Egypt is a land of sweetness. 
There are in it, no doubt, as in every inhabited country, 
things unclean ; but the earth deodorises and the hot sun 
evaporates all impurity so quickly that one habitually 
breathes none but the sweetest air. That semi-contrac- 
tion of mouth and nostril peculiar to a high state of 
civilization is forgotten on the Nile, and with open mouth 
one drinks deep draughts of the fragrant atmosphere. 
Boulak is the exception which proves the rule of 
Egypt's sweetness. 

C. spent her time at Cairo, adding to the number of 
our stores, riding donkey-back about the crowded streets, 
and recognising everywhere the scenes she had lived 
amongst, both in the letterpress and illustrations of her 
Arabian Nights. If Egypt constantly reminds one of 
early Bible story, Cairo is still the setting, the very 
framework, of the " Thousand-and-one Nights' Entertain- 
ments/' Unlike Constantinople, it is undiluted by 
Western men and manners, and remains as Eastern as it 
was thousands of years ago. 

The mosque and muezzin, the water-carrier and his 
donkey, the tailor and his shop, are the very same that we 
lived with as children ; and in fact, as in story, the pur- 
chaser steps up into the seller's lilliputian shop, open to 
the street, sits with him on his carpet, on a level with the 



54 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



waists of the passers-by, and makes bis bargain with 
their aid, advice, and approval. Ibrahim was with C. 
and I remained on board, with two men to take care of 
me and the dahabeah. In the afternoon these two knocked 
at the cabin-door, and came in. One was the steersman, 
Aref by name : a tall, rather effeminately made and 
looking man, of bright olive complexion, hairless face, 
large dark and flashing eyes, who with his clothes more 
than usually full and flowing, a shawl habitually worn 
round his waist, and a red turban on his head, fulfilled 
my ideal of Meg Merrilies. With him was Abed, the 
caretaker of our boat during her summer idleness. 

Living as we did on deck, within hearing of our crew, 
we soon gave each a name by which he could be spoken 
of without attracting his or his fellows' attention. Abed 
was soon called u the faithful/' Abed had a remarkably 
handsome face, with a gentle, kindly-hearted expression, 
most true to the nature of the man. Ever ready to 
undertake and willing to perform, he accepted as his 
share half of the whole ship's work, did it as if it was 
the pleasure of his day, and then turned for recreation 
to whatever remained to be done. If the boat went 
aground, Abed was the first into the water and the last 
out. It was Abed who carried the hated tow-rope 
ashore and brought it back. He ran of errands, got the 
milk, washed our clothes, at need made a cup of coffee, 
and regularly cleansed, fed, and watered our farm. The 
Arabs are carelessly cruel to animals, Abed was so never. 



ABED. 



55 



The chickens and turkeys knew and followed him ; and 
the sheep, as soon as he untied them in the felucca, leapt 
ashore upon his heels. As to us, he was the comfort and 
dependence of our lives, and not once in five months did 
we have fault to find with Abed, or lack a thing that he 
could do for us. 

He now introduced Aref to me, and told in Arabic a long 
story. Aref then followed with his account of the same. 
After a time I began to gather something of their 
meaning; and by dint of much repetition, mutual patience, 
and a liberal use of Abed's English, which consisted of 
the word "yes" beautifully pronounced, I learnt that 
Aref was going back to Alexandria, and didn't like it ; 
that the reis was the cause of his leaving the ship, 
and that I was requested to prevent his dismissal. This 
was, of course, impossible, and Aref had to go. The 
reis was by no means unwilling that I should interfere, 
as my so doing would have shifted all responsibility from 
his shoulders to mine. 

During our short stay at Cairo further changeswere made 
in the crew, and I had visits from those that came and 
those that went. The old man, whose early tumble in the- 
mud aroused our pity and his comrades' laughter, besought 
me to keep him.- He had the most beautiful large soft 
brown eyes I ever saw. It was difficult to refuse their 
piteous appeal ; but he was lazier than he was weak, and 
dirtier than either, and I could not grant the interference 
in his favour already refused to Aref. Eadouan, a reis out 



5 6 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



of place, came on board, and was introduced in state as 
our future steersman, and second in command. Then 
Hagar Said, a negro without front teeth, and a middle- 
aged man named Omar, kissed my hand in token of en- 
listment. Lastly, a shrill cry of u backshish " in my ear 
made me jump, and I turned to see the urchin who had 
come with us from Alexandria as cook and servant to 
the crew. He was a stunted negro boy, whose age one 
could not guess, and who would only be unjustly described 
as all rags and dirt, because he was remarkable for so much 
dirt and so little rag. The nephew of Aref, he was about 
to return to Alexandria, and we were most glad to give 
him the piastres of farewell. 

Our crew was now complete, and consisted of the 
reis, the steersman Eadouan, five men, and a lad named 
Zenate. Thus, with our two servants and our two 
selves, we were twelve souls in all. A small number, but 
sufficient for the size of our boat. Large dahabeahs have 
as many as twelve and fourteen men, not including the 
reis and steersman. 

On December 3, we were all ready for a start , but 
not so our crew. The reis, in arriving on the 1st, had 
asked for one day as necessary for his preparations ; and 
we had of course given it, with the understanding that on 
the 3rd we should depart. The 3rd came, and every pos- 
sible excuse was made to detain us. When these were ex- 
hausted, the men could not be found. First one and then 
another was missing, and hour after hour went by. 



THE START 



57 



Those who were on board went ashore to find the miss- 
ing ones ; and when, during their absence, the men 
sought for returned, they in turn were sent by the reis 
in search of their seekers. Warned by Murray that it is 
always most difficult to get away from Cairo, we were 
prepared for some delay ; but the pertinacity with which 
all endeavours to get off were met, made us think that there 
must be some more than ordinary reason for so great a 
desire to remain. We inquired, therefore, from Ibrahim 
if this was the case. It was so : the day was the vigil of 
the cruel Ramadan; and our poor boatmen longed to 
pass their last day of pleasure in the riotous state of liv- 
ing authorised by custom. Now Ibrahim was a Copt, 
and by no means an amiable man. The suffering of a 
Mussulman was to him rather a source of satisfaction ; 
and to deny our men a last enjoyment allowed by their 
religion was to the Copt a Christian act. So Ibrahim 
did no violence to his habits, and lied. There was a feast, 
he said, the day before Ramadan commenced, but this 
was on the day after the morrow, and if the hawager 
waited for it, he must remain where he was for three 
days more. This decided us ; and we ordered the sails 
to be cast loose, and the boat to start with or without her 
full crew. Reluctantly and doggedly, after a threat to 
leave the reis behind, we were obeyed; the men imme- 
diately appeared, and we pushed off, freighted, owing to 
an involuntary act of harshness, with the ill-will and dis- 
content of every Mussulman on board. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CATEO TO MINIEH. 

At last we had made a start. Our voyage from Alex- 
andria to Cairo was regarded as a preliminary canter to 
the real race — as the drive or ride to cover before the 
true business of the day commences. We were now off, 
and though the breeze failed us, and by nightfall we had 
only reached Girgeh, an outskirt of Cairo, about three 
miles distant, it was with feelings of satisfaction, and a 
temper very different from that of our men, that we 
listened in the still night to the beatings of the tomtoms, 
and other discordant noises, that came to us softened by 
our distance from the feasting city. - The next morn- 
ing we started with a moderate N.N.W. breeze, and 
reached Kafr el Aiat, a distance of thirty-one miles, 
without any greater mishap than running aground three 
times. The sail was most charming, and the scenery 
picturesque. 

In the early part of it, the Great Pyramids, which stand 
almost abreast of Cairo, were passed and left behind. 
Then we ran by the Pyramids of Sakarah, useful as a 
contrast to those of Ghiseh, and showing by their faults 
the perfections and beauty of their neighbours; and at 
Shobak we came upon a most lovely view. Groves and 
groups of palms covered an extent of two or three 



GUARDS. 



59 



square miles, and as they opened here into glades, there 
into an open space, the eye caught, interspersed amongst 
them and dotted over the opener landscape, a number of 
huge forest trees, probably sycamores. The new corn, 
perhaps six inches high, gave the whole oasis a coat of 
brilliant green ; and the desert at the sides framed in a 
picture that reminded me strongly of one, painted by 
Martin I think, of Paradise. 

At sunset I wanted to stop, and we went to the bank ; 
but the fear of cattiva genie soon sent us adrift again. 
At all the larger villages there are guards appointed, and 
paid by the government, whose duty it is to watch 
over the safety of boats as they rest at night. 
Until we got above Sioot, our reis strongly objected to 
stop except at one of these villages. He had ever the 
fear of robbery and murder before him; with how 
much reason it is difficult to say. In Egypt there is 
nothing new, and nothing old is ever forgotten ; so that 
every robbery that ever was committed is remembered, 
and spoken of as if it had been a crime of yesterday ; 
and an ill name once acquired, sticks by a village 
from generation to generation. The excuse of a no 
guards " was, no doubt, often put forward as a reason 
to go on if progress was desired, or to stop because 
none would be found for miles to corne, if stop- 
ping smiled upon our crew. But, as a rule, the fear of 
passing a guardless night was genuine ; and it was 
amusing to see how the country boats collected together 



6o THE XILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



at sunset in any part of the river that had a bad name. 
Oar presence was a great attraction ■ and if, as we often 
did, we made fast in the afternoon, by night we had 
become the centre of a little fleet. A dahabeah meant 
a foreigner, and a foreigner had guns. TTe also 
possessed one. Too great an invalid to shoot, I had 
come without a powder-burning weapon of any kind \ 
but at the earnest and reiterated request of the reis 
and Ibrahim, we took on board at Cairo a double- 
barrel. This it was their joy to make display with 
on arriving at any supicious place. "Ah/' said Ibrahim 
• ' the hawager does not know, but I know. Two men 
were murdered here in a dahabeah last week, and there 
is not a man on board who if the cattle a gente came, 
would not jump overboard. I alone should remain to be 
killed. Let me now fire the gun, and no one will come. ;; 

So we used to sleep wherever there were guards, and 
to give the guard two or three piastres in the morning. 
Thus we were all pleased. Xo one had a nocturnal 
bath, and Ibrahim's courage and fidelity wrought him no 
evil. The preparations for the night were very simple. 
First the indispensable protector was demanded ; then 
two boat pegs, rough small piles, three feet long and 
pointed at one end, were got out, and driven into -the 
earth at the head and stern of the dahabeah. To these 
hawsers were made fast. The plank or bridge was then 
thrown from the gunwale to the shore; and, lastly, both 
the main and upper deck were covered in with awnings, 



RAMADAN. 



6 1 



to serve as sleeping-rooms for the reis, our servants, and 
the crew. 

The breeze strengthened during the night; and I 
knew by the lap of the waves against pur sides, and 
the coughs of the men on deck, how cold it was. The 
nights in this part of Egypt are often very fresh, and 
there is about Cairo, in Xo member, not unfrequently a 
heavy fog. Tested by the thermometer the temperature 
is seldom really low ; but the thermometer is a most un- 
sympathetic measure of sensation, and one may be very 
cold indeed in spite of Fahrenheit's assertion that the air 
is temperate. We got under weigh at 7.30, and carry- 
ing with us a strong breeze, reached Benisouef, forty- 
one miles distant, in twelve hours. How slow is travel- 
ling on the Kile ! With so much wind that our after 
sail was not set, and the sheet of the mainsail, which is 
never made fast, required constantly two and sometimes 
three men to hold it, we did not accomplish three and a half 
miles in the hour. The day, unlike its predecessor, was a 
plain one, but in keeping with the country, which was 
dull, colourless, and sterile. The ship too was dull. It 
was but the second day of Eamadan, and the men were 
not accustomed to its privations. In all suffering, 
whether self-prescribed or unavoidable, the intermediate 
stage is the most trying. At the commencement, nature, 
untamed and resisting, helps the patient to endure; at 
the last, custom has partly reconciled him to his trial; 
or weakness, consequent on suffering, has dulled his 



62 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



capacity for pain. But there is a time between the two 
which is worse than either : when neither novelty nor 
habit, lend a feeble distraction, — when the nerve, already 
weakened and not yet dulled, shrinks from the pain from 
which it knows there is no escape. 

Our men were now in this stage ; the first day of their 
religion-inflicted penance was borne with courage and 
goodwill • but during the two or three succeeding ones, the 
mortification of the flesh was great, and the spirit rebel- 
lious. Ramadan is a severe penance, and its general strict 
observance shows how strong a hold the Mohammedan re- 
ligion has upon its followers. For thirty days, no Moham- 
medan among our crew ate, drank, or smoked, between 
four in the morning and five at night. Such a fast would 
be severe to us in an English climate : how much more is 
it trying under an Egyptian sun, to men whose day is a 
constant succession of snacks, and who must feel, with- 
out tobacco, much as a eel would do wrapped in a damp 
cloth — alive, but thoroughly miserable. Xo wonder that 
our ship was dull. Gorging all night, and fasting all 
day, the men suffered from repletion in the morning, 
from weakness in the evening ; and owing to one or the 
other cause, were alike unfit for work or for play. 

Benisouef is the first town of any importance met 
with above Cairo. But we, impatient to leave foggy 
and cold nights behind us, gave it no attention ; so 
getting under weigh at breakfast-time, we poled and 
towed among the submerged sandbanks that later in 



DOLCE FAR NIENTE. 



63 



the season impede the approach to the town, until the 
light morning air strengthened into a fine N.W. breeze, 
and drove us, all canvas set, dashing up the stream. 
And a most lovely sail we had. Nothing can be more 
enjoyable to a sick man than this Nile travelling when 
things go right. Bright, light, and fresh as are the air, the 
scene, and the sun, one forgets one's pains, one's aches, 
and one's troubles, forgets one's last food, and prepares 
for more. With enough to think of to tarn the mind 
from mischievous self-contemplation, there is nothing to 
try or harass. Life perforce ceases to be a labour, or 
even an occupation, and man lives for the sake of living 
— for the material pleasures of existence, that nature, in 
such a climate, so freely supplies. Sufficient for the day 
is it to breathe such balmy air, to bask in the sun, to eat 
when the body needs food, and to sleep when the brain 
desires rest. 

In the afternoon, however, we were recalled from 
dreamland by a breeze too strong for my or the reis's 
nerves. Staggering along to the almost continuous cry 
of " harlez," the men did not on one occasion let the main 
sheet fly quite quickly enough, and we took in a bucket- 
full of water. Petroleum could not have blazed out 
more quickly than our reis ; and the mischief was mopped 
up amid a storm of shrieks, scolding, and cries, that 
sounded like the appropriate swearing in Arabic of 
Marryat's boatswain, Mr. Chucks. About the same time, 
two very large " merkebs " came up with us ; their size, 



64 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



and the excellence of their equipment, declared them 
to be the property of the viceroy. They were laden 
with immense boiler plates and tubes, and we called 
the first Blunderbuss, and the second, from her mis- 
conduct, Blunderbore. Blunderbuss ran right by, and 
left us a little abashed by her size, and envious of her 
speed, but neither frig'htened nor hurt. But Blunderbore 
wouldn't leave us. For two lon2f hours she stuck close 
to us, now before, now behind, now on each side, every- 
thing but over us. She wouldn't steer, and as she 
yawed about all over the river, we owed our escape from 
a collision, that her weight would have made most serious, 
to good fortune rather than to skill on our part, or con- 
sideration on hers. We were quit of her, however, for 
the fear, and we pulled up at Massarah as the sun was 
going down, side by side, the best of friends. The desert 
scenery we had been passing through was very interest- 
ing. Sandhills and bluffs — part sand, part stone — the 
debris of fortifications and buildings of remote ages, 
ran down to and along the river. In many places 
the ruins had been or were being excavated by collectors 
of relics or of nitre. At one spot there was an encamp- 
ment of diggers, and we saw our first Arab tents, look- 
ing, but for their camel hair coverings, just like a gipsy 
camp on Epsom downs. We saw too our first vultures, 
and the desert character of the whole scene was only 
increased by the occasional thin lines of palms, that here 
and there fringed the bank. 



MASSARAH. 



OS 



Massarah is a Frankicised looking place, where tall 
chimneys overtopping the palm-trees, and other go-ahead 
signs, rudely brought us back to civilization. We left it 
early next morning, but it was some hours before we got 
beyond its well-done-by and well-to-do appearance. The 
Nile began to have a more southern aspect, and to 
resemble more nearly the Nile of our expectations ; but 
our illusions were constantly destroyed by tall factory 
chimneys, and the scream of the railway whistle. We 
even at one spot saw two engines on the bank for 
raising water. They were not in use however ; one 
lying on its side, the other standing upright ; and Ibra- 
him declared that nothing would induce the fellaheen 
to work them. 

A few hours sail left the sugar mills behind, and 
the scenery reminded us of the Hampshire downs, as 
we have seen them under the very hot sun of a very hot 
summer. But the downs before us were rolling hills of 
sand ; the scant firs were replaced by palm-trees, and the 
distant wood, resembling a large clump of beeches, was 
composed of trees unknown to us. 

Sleeping at Grolo Sana, we tried to get under weigh 
the next morning at our usual hour, but Girghis was 
absent. The reis went in search of him, and did not 
return; another man went after the reis; and another 
and another till we were left with Badouan, Ibrahim, Abed, 
and the boy. At ten o' clock my patience gave way, and 
I began to hobble up the bank. There, underneath it, 



66 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



within twenty yards of the boat, but by no means dis- 
turbed by Radouan's incessant shouts, were collected the 
whole of our crew, lying on the broad of their backs or 
the flat of their stomachs. At sight of me they came on 
board, and I ordered the boat to start. Girghis was still 
absent, and it was a serious thing to leave our cook be- 
hind : but to have submitted, would have been to lose all 
control, and to make Girghis master of the ship. So we 
insisted, and just as the boat got off, he appeared hot and 
out of breath. He had been, he said, in search of mutton, 
and had been sent from place to place for it in vain. 

We had a good breeze all day ; just such a breeze 
as on ordinary occasions the Lotus rejoiced in; but for 
some reason we could not understand, the boat was not 
allowed to make any way. She was tacked incessantly 
from side to side \ her sails were never fairly set, and 
the full strength of the stream was persistently sought. 
There happened to be very few boats in sight, so 
that I was unable to point out the course taken by any 
other one as better than that we were pursuing; and thus 
the day was got through, and it was sunset by the time 
we approached Minieh, a distance of eighteen miles. 

Then the meaning of the day's loss was made manifest. 
Abed's village and home was on the bank opposite. He 
naturally wished to pass the night there ; and with the 
love of petty scheming that forms so large an element in 
Arab character, every means of procuring him this in- 
dulgence was resorted to previous to the simple, and 



ARAB CHARACTER. 



67 



after all necessary, one of asking for it. He had taken 
no part himself in the farce that had been played, and the 
only hour during which the boat was properly handled, 
was when he was at the helm and Eadouan at his prayers. 
We, of course, put him ashore, with the promise to stand 
over and pick him up again the next morning. The 
little intrigue that is constantly going on among an 
Arab crew is often annoying. However reasonable may 
be their desires, they are rarely preferred until all pos- 
sible underhand means of obtaining them have been 
tried and have failed. Not only is every man ever ready 
to put forward some scheme for himself, but each one is 
anxious to promote his neighbours' ; and the success of the 
intrigue itself becomes of greater moment than the object 
for which it has been set on foot. The result of this habit 
is, that the traveller without a dragoman is constantly 
brought into antagonism -with his crew, and is tricked 
into denying, as we were at Cairo, what he would have 
willingly given if it had only been asked for, or he had 
known it was desired. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



MINIEH TO SIOOT. 



Minieh is a most thriving town, and the capital of a pro- 
vince ; but neither its size, cleanliness, or picturesque 
appearance, had any charms for us now. The wind was 
from the north. From it and from it only could our boat 
draw force, motion, life ; and to lose an hour of the precious 
power by which alone the swift Nile current could be 
overcome was intolerable to us, anxious to push on. 
The freshness too, not to say cold, of its breath added to 
our impatience to get south. So we spread our sails 
even before we drank our morning coffee, and followed 
as best we might the vast flocks of wild geese that were 
passing over us. We found the cc Faithful " true as ever to 
his promise, waiting on the bank at the hour we had 
named. He had with him his wife, whose shyness was 
commensurate with her good looks, instead of bearing to 
them that inverse proportion so fortunately, as a rule, 
observable among women of the East as well as of the 
West. We, therefore, only got one glimpse of a remarkably 
pretty face, and then had to confine our admiration to 
the gold embroidery on her dress, and our interest to the 
chickens she brought as a present. C, taken by sur- 
prise, had nothing to give in return, so we fell back on 



ANCIENT REMAINS. 



69 



piastres, — perhaps, after all, the most acceptable form of 
backshish. 

We were soon off again, but not for long. The breeze 
which had promised so well in the morning left as with 
Mrs. Abed. A breeze of taste, it had possibly gone back 
with her to the village, fluttering among her blue cotton 
drapery, and abandoned us for a day or two to the pole 
and the tow-rope. The progress we therefore made was 
slow. Occasionally a gentle wind enabled us to creep on 
a mile or two, and in the morning we made a little way 
by towing ; but we had not the heart to keep the fasting 
men at labour after twelve in the day, and so we stopped 
early and travelled little. But there was small cause for 
complaint. The weather was perfectly lovely; as the 
wind lost its power its coldness also disappeared, and the 
temperature became that of an English fine summer's day. 
The scenery too was beautiful ; and at last we saw the 
Nile as we had imagined it to be. The bank lined with 
palms and mimosas ; here straggling, there in clumps, 
again falling back altogether, and giving place to some 
open land. In the background sandhills or rocks ; 
having at their feet huge mounds of rubbish that once 
had been busy towns, or here and there a living village. 

How thick was once the population of Egypt may be 
seen by the position as well as size of these old towns. 
The precious arable land was rarely cumbered by a build- 
ing ; and notwithstanding the inconvenience attending the 
living at any distance from the river, the villages almost 



70 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



invariably stood on the desert Mils that skirt tlie fertile 
soil. Beniliassan on the east bank, notorious for its 
grottoes and its thieves, is particularly beautiful; and so 
is Antinoe of worldwide reputation, and El Berkeh. 
Nothing could present a stronger contrast to the groves 
of palms, which form their present wealth, than the hills 
surrounding them, full to the antiquary of riches of the 
past. Wizened, shrunk, and shrivelled by time, they look 
rather as if they had been scorched and pulverised by fire 
than merely worn by age. The very rocks are worm- 
eaten into holes, and the stones are like bricks seven 
times passed through fire. 

On the 12th we reached the head of the great Bahr 
Yoosef canal. It was a dead calm, and we had an amusing 
scene in crossing it. The breadth of the channel was 
about sixty yards. With water too deep for poling, with a 
stream too strong for rowing, it was necessary to send a 
hawser across, and so warp to the other side. It took us 
half an hour to talk about it, almost as long to send 
the rope over, the same time to fix it, as much to bring it 
back ; and after another talk of almost equal duration, we 
were not three minutes in hauling across. It was a true 
sample of Arab work : the thing done bearing no proportion 
to the fuss made and the time lost. The natives' mode of 
crossing is much more primitive. Their ferry-boat is a 
bundle of reeds or doora straw ; the oars are the passen- 
ger's arms and legs. Those who are desirous of passing 
over walk to the brink, slip out of their cloths, place 



CHANGES OF THE RIVERS COURSE. 



7i 



them on their heads, and, embracing the straw support, 
take their bath and their passage at the same time. The 
bundles of straw seemed common property, and we saw a 
dozen or more people make use of them in turn. 

Our halt gave us also some information respecting 
the habits of the river itself. As we lay against the 
fork of land formed by the canal on one side, and the 
river on the other, the eddy caused by our boat ate 
its way into the soft rich soil, and before we left tho 
place, the wash had hollowed out a small bay or harbour as 
deep as the breadth of the boat, so that our stem and stern 
lay level with the line of the bank before and behind us. 
At this spot, in the then high state of the river, the land 
was level with our gunwale ; and the slips, as they quickly 
occurred, did no more than splash our deck. But as a rule, 
the Nile bank is many feet above the waterline, and it not 
unfrequently is unsafe to approach it. 

We had with us excellent maps made by French engi- 
neers, and it was our habit to mark off on them with com- 
passes the tale of our daily voyage. But we found it not a 
little difficult to do this with accuracy. The river winds so 
much that its windings can scarcely be sufficiently shown. 
Constantly doing on a large scale what we had just seen it 
doing on a small one, it forms islands and washes away 
others ; it changes its course, here carrying away a town, 
there leaving another far inland that was originally built 
on its bank. Of these different variations we saw notable 
instances near Manfaloot, the part of the river where we 



72. THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



now were. Where the map showed a bend of moderate 
dimensions, we found the course of the river describing a 
letter N, with compressed sides ; and our boat's head was 
turned during the day due east, due west, and to every 
southern point of the compass between the two. Before 
night we passed three distinct old beds of the river, broad 
and unsightly fissures that scored the face of the rich 
plain they dissected ; and dry, except where an occasional 
pond, of the dimensions of a small lake occupied a more 
than usually deepened portion of the now disused channels. 
And making fast in the dark, we heard the opposite bank 
falling in, a cartload at a time, as the river, eating into 
the alluvial soil, undermined and brought it tumbling in 
with a heavy crash. Manfaloot itself is half washed away, 
and the part remaining is threatened with a similar fate. 

Gebel (anglice, mountain) Abou Fodhr was the next 
object of interest passed. These hills are among the 
highest on the banks of the Nile, and as they actually 
overhang the river, they are much dreaded by the boat- 
men; not without reason, as we saw on our return 
voyage. The wind blows fiercely in these latitudes, and 
the heavy squalls that burst over the tops of the hills are 
a by no means unfrequent cause of accident. 

In appearance Grebel Abou Fodhr is even older than 
the hills near Antinoe. Here and there huge lumps, 
acres big, of crumbling stone seemed on the point of 
slipping from the crest of the mountain ridge, and toppling 
headlong into the water. Next we ran by a dip partly 



A SERPENTINE COURSE. 



73 



filled up, by which, the strata, clearly defined on either side, 
were intercepted. It looked as if such a rock-fall had 
actually occurred some thousands of years ago, and the 
fault had been since made good by a gigantic mass of 
conglomerate. 

On the 14th we reached Sioot, after having passed 
some miles of navigation rendered difficult by the exces- 
sive winding of the river's course. The great strength 
of the Nile current makes progress very slow unless 
with a full fair breeze. Consequently where the river 
bends considerably either to the east or west much 
delay is occasioned. Below Sioot, as about Manfaloot, 
the great Nile twists and winds like any English 
trout stream, and constantly one carries up to a corner 
a fair wind, and turns to face it. Still the north wind is 
a good friend, and if he sometimes hits one on either 
cheek, he is more often ready to back one, and so in the 
end progress is made. With each day we found the 
scenery become prettier, more novel, and more southern. 
The colours grew brighter, the air more balmy, the 
light more intense, and the atmosphere more clear. 
The temperature rose considerably, and Fahrenheit 
marked this evening at Sioot, 71 degrees, at 8 p.m. 
Flocks of many birds were all day on the water or in the 
air. Vast numbers of wild geese could be distinguished 
at incredible distances ; the swallows caught flies on our 
deck, while the waterwagtails stole from it crumbs of 
bread. 



74 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



Our two servants lived close to Sioot : Girghis at 
Benoub, a mile or two below it ; Ibrahim at Wasta, a 
short distance above, and both on the opposite bank. 
We had landed Girghis at the nearest point to his vil- 
lage on our way up, and we now sent Ibrahim home for 
the night. C. went on the ever-ready donkey to Sioot, 
and I remained to drink the Faithful's coffee, and take a 
lesson from him in pantomime and Arabic. 

One is never dull on board a dahabeah. As the 
boat lies at the bank, and one occupies the upper deck 
shrouded from the sun and sheltered from the wind 
by awnings, no box at a theatre is half so comfortable, 
and few plays so amusing as the scenes constantly 
acted before one. All is so strange, so new, to a man 
unaccustomed to Eastern life; all, afc the same time, 
so old and familiar to any pne up in his Arabian 
Nights, or well acquainted with his Bible. The whole 
is more like a dream, or a play, than the too realistic life 
of our northern climes, with its miseries, discomforts, and 
wants. The men are like children, in their idleness, 
their vanity, desire for amusement, quickness in passion 
or delight ; the dirt is not dirt in that dry climate ; the 
poverty is not want ; the rags are merely picturesque 
where the bounteous sun keeps all things warm. Then 
the gravity with which everything, the most trivial, is 
done, until with a burst of boyish laughter, it changes into 
boisterous mirth, as some trifling jest, or good-natured 
practical joke, charms the Arab from his dignity. There 



AN EASTERN SCENE. 



75 



land two or three of our crew, on their way for an after- 
noon at Sioot. The sun is setting ; by the time they 
reach it the coffee-shops will be opened, the coffee ready, 
the mutton cooked, and the weary fast of the day over. 
Grave is their demeanour, full of importance their deport- 
ment, as they shuffle on their slippers of festivity, and 
throw round their shoulders the black camels' hair robe 
of full dress. 

Hardly do they touch the shore, when the crowd of donkey 
boys in attendance make a rush. The reis and Mahomed, 
his brother-in-law, submitting, are hoisted at once on to the 
nearest animals, but Achmet desires to choose, and refuses 
the donkey almost pressed under him. At once the spirit 
of fun catches everything and everybody, and has it all his 
own way. A dozen boys seize on the tall Arab sailor, his 
blue robes and his black are thrown over his head, and 
twisted round his face. A very bundle of cotton clothes, 
from the corners of which vainly wave long thin arms 
and legs, he is pitched sack fashion on to a donkey, and 
is cantered off over the bank and out of sight, amid the 
shouts, pushes, and open-handed blows of the boys, the 
laughter of the sailors, and the delight of everybody, 
were he grave Turk or sick infidel. 

Before we went to bed, Ibrahim, to our astonishment, 
returned • and we listened no less wonderingly to his 
explanation, that he had come back because he thought 
that we should not be comfortable without him. From 
such a declaration coming from such a man, one whose 



76 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



disregard for our comfort was only equalled by Ms 
appreciation of his own, we ; like King Cole, ventured to 
infer that something would occur, though not what that 
something would be. It was, therefore, without much 
surprise that, awakened about three in the morning by 
an unusual noise, we listened to the taking up of the 
transverse planks or bars, by which the hold was covered 
in. Some heavy bale or barrel was then moved about, 
and finally the bars were replaced, and we went again to 
sleep. 

On Ibrahim's coming to me in the morning, I inquired 
the meaning of the unusual and untimely disturbance. 
Of course he denied that there had been any noise at all. 
"But," I said, "why was the hold opened ? " " U banco 
apre ! " said Ibrahim, with astonished emphasis ; " it had 
never been touched I" As I would not accept this assertion, 
he soon remembered that it had been opened, but that 
he had slept through the whole operation. On this, I 
pointed out that, as his bed lay on the very planks that 
were moved, he must be a hard sleeper. " Ah," said 
Ibrahim, nothing abashed, " el hawager sai tutto. Now 
I remember the hold was opened, and we had hard work 
in the middle of the night to get out the flour, that the 
sittee (0.) might have some new bread for her breakfast." 
"Was the bread made ?" "Why, no ; that slow fellow, 
that Arab, Girghis, had not finished it." Ibrahim, Gir- 
ghis, and I, then had some serious discourse, during 
which it came out that we too had slept hard during the 



PETTY PILFERING. 



77 



early morning, for the "banco" had been opened twice/ — 
once for Ibrahim's requirements, and once for the cook's; 
but nobody on board ship had, of course, had anything to 
do with the opening, or even knew of the disturbance. 
We kept our tempers, and contented ourselves with 
making the reis responsible for the future non-tampering 
with the hold. He received strict orders never to per- 
mit any provisions or stores to be taken from it after 
nightfall, and an assurance that if our injunction was dis- 
obeyed we would bring him before the authorities. 

It was difficult to refrain from looking into the 
hold and flour barrel ourselves, and ascertaining the 
extent of our losses; but we felt that if we did so it 
would be necessary to turn one or both of our servants 
away, or that at all events it would be idle, and indeed 
unwise, to prove them rogues, unless we meant to take 
action on the proof. Besides, the mischief was done, 
the temptation to take white flour for presents to their 
friends was, as we had been told, almost irresistible, and 
it would not occur again until our return to Sioot. Our 
Copt servants we knew, would not permit any peculation 
from the Mussulman crew. 

There are two ways of punishing dishonest or other- 
wise offending servants in Egypt : the Western, by turn- 
ing away ; the Eastern, by the stick. The first can only 
be resorted to by those who can do without the discharged 
offender ; for there is no possibility, when Cairo is once 
left below, of replacing him. The second is always with- 



78 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



in the traveller's reach, as we were informed. The Egyp- 
tian official being ever ready to oblige an European with 
so small a thing as the application of the bastinado to the 
feet of any one who had offended him. But it is a cruel 
punishment, and the very size of Ibrahim's feet made 
them inviolable in our eyes : how could we attack so 
defenceless and vast a space for suffering ! After- events 
made us glad that we had fallen back on the masterly 
policy of inaction, in obedience to that very wise rule, 
— " when in doubt do nothing." If we had made any 
accusation against our people, Girghis would certainly 
have been included in it ; and though appearances were 
against him in the present instance, he proved himself, 
before our voyage was over, to be a most excellent 
servant, and, for an Arab, a miracle of honesty. 



CHAPTER IX. 



SIOOT TO KENEH. 

Sioot, the most important town of Upper Egypt, contains, 
according to Murray, a population of 20,000 souls. The 
governor of the Saeed, as the district is named, resides 
there. The bazaars are not very inferior to those of 
Cairo, and among the many mosques is one whose re- 
markably high minaret attracts to it deserved attention. 
The weekly market, held on Sunday, is well supplied ; 
and, in addition to ordinary country produce, goods of 
various kinds are to be had that have been sent from 
Cairo on the one hand, or brought by large caravans 
uhrough the desert from Darfur on the other. On our 
return voyage, such a caravan, containing, as we were 
told, more than 1000 men, had just arrived, and was 
encamped at a short distance from the town. But the 
ware of Sioot most worthy of notice is of home manufac- 
ture. There is a pottery close to the town, where black 
and red bottles, bowls, pipes, and what may be called 
fancy articles, all of much beauty, are made and sold at a 
trifling price. We were so far unlucky in our purchases, 
that an Englishman had been before us on the day of our 
visit, and had bought up nearly the whole stock-in-trade ; 
but the twenty or thirty pieces we brought home have 
been much and deservedly admired. The workmanship 



8o THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



is rather deficient in finish, but the colours are good, the 
soft material takes a polish, and the shapes, handed down 
from all time, are beautiful. The best pipe bowls in 
Egypt are made here, and amongst the curiosities of the 
manufacture were found some instruments the bottoms of 
which were rasped like a file and are used by the women 
for cleaning their feet. 

Sioot, however, offered no attraction strong enough to 
detain us now, and on the 15th of December, the very 
morning after our arrival, we got again under weigh. 
Lovely was the day,' soft the air, and gentle the breeze, 
as we slowly sailed up the pretty and rather long reach 
above the town. Nothing in nature foreboded the season 
of storms upon which we were entering. But we had 
committed a great mistake : we had proved against 
Ibrahim a fault for which we might have made him 
suffer severely, and had taken no advantage of the oppor- 
tunity. To allow an occasion for punishment to pass 
unused is, in Egypt, to be weak. To be weak is the un- 
pardonable sin; and we soon found that our authority, 
already shaken by too frequent gifts of mutton to the 
crew, had been completely destroyed by our regard for 
the splay soles of our servant's feet. 

By evening we had only made a very few miles. As we 
went below, the halt for the night was ordered to be made 
at a village we pointed out on the right bank. The reis, for 
the dear sake of disobedience, immediately turned the head 
of the boat to the left, and brought us up on that shore. 



TIMIDITY OF BOA TMEN. Si 

Finding this to be the case, and reading in it the con- 
firmation of suspicions the men's attitude during the day 
had aroused, we saw that the struggle for the mastership 
on board had commenced. So first allowing the men to 
finish their supper, we ordered the boat to be cast loose, 
and taken to the village on the other bank. This the reis 
soon made impossible by steering up the wrong side of 
a long sandbank ; and he instantly followed the demon- 
stration of the fact by declaring that it was necessary to 
return to the place we had already made fast at. I would 
not permit him to do so ; and we went sailing on with 
a light breeze, at the rate perhaps of one mile an hour. 
The night was lovely, and hot as a summer evening in 
England ; the moon only, by its extraordinary brightness, 
protesting that we were many a mile from home. About 
ten we desired to stop, but there was no village near of 
sufficient importance to have a guard, at least so said the 
reis, and we went creeping on far into the night. The fear 
the boatmen have of being robbed and murdered, seems 
senseless enough. Xo doubt it is often simulated to in- 
duce an early stop or a late sail, as suits their convenience 
or love of contradiction ; but it really exists, and very 
strongly. They would often tow the boat for a couple of 
hours in the dark, most dreary of work, rather than stop, 
except among a goodly number of other boats, or under 
the protection of the village guards. Though we were 
on board twelve souls, whereof nine were able-bodied men, 
we dared not make fast to the bank, except in company, 

Gr 



82 THE XILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN, 



or even anchor in the middle of the river ; and this not 
from fear of collisions, but for onr throats. 

During this part of our voyage there was no wind, the 
weather was hot for the time of year, and the thermometer 
stood during the middle of the day at 80° in our cabins. 
But the calm outside the ship did not prevail within. TTith 
the exception of the Faithful and Girghis, who did their 
work well as usual, and indeed did all the work that was 
done, the men behaved like boys at school before a break- 
ing out. We gave as few orders as possible, determined to 
choose well our ground for the open quarrel that was inevit- 
able ; but each one that was given was passively resisted, 
evaded, contested, and only performed when the respon- 
sibilitv of not doino- it there and then fell unmistakablv 
on some one individual. Then the man funked and obeyed. 
The work of the boat was done in the most slovenly man- 
ner. Arab boatmen are at their best as bad perhaps as 
can well be found; but when they don't desire to please, 
the ingenuity of their bungling so defies description, 
that I will only write of them as they are in their better 
moods. 

Absolutely without forethought, they impose upon 
themselves hours of hard work by their unreadiness. 
The oars are never in the small boat when thev are 
wanted, and she is cast off in an emergency without them. 
The pull in time is never given, and for want of it the 
dahabeah runs out into the stream, or into the bank, and 
it requires ten times the labour to get her off or in again. 



WANT OF FORESIGHT. 



S3 



When they get into a scrape, as is constantly the case, 
or have any difficulty to surmount, they select as the 
course to be first tried that which entails the least labour, 
never that which gives the best chance of success, and it 
became one of our amusements to see them resort after an 
hour or two perhaps of wasted and useless efforts, to the 
means whose necessity was evident from the first, but 
which required at the outset some slight additional 
exertion. 

They are enduring, however, and patient in their en- 
deavours to set things rig-lit when thev have gone wrong. 
What they see and have under their hand they believe. 
The cause that produces its effect before their eyes they 
understand; but they seem incapable of reason, of previ- 
sion, or of waiting for a result . They are mostly descended 
from the nomad Arabs, and one grows, living amongst 
them, to wonder how they ever became agriculturists. 
"When the harvest was so far off the seedtime, as it is 
even in this climate and soil, it must have taken genera- 
tions of forced labour to induce them to sow the land. 

With such characters it is needless. to say that none but 
the simplest management of a boat is possible ; and that 
if the condition of surrounding things is in any way 
complicated, accidents and bungling are sure to occur. 
As long as the north wind blows, and does not blow 
too strongly, all goes well. The men can hang on to the 
sheet, and experience has taught them to yield to their 
instinctive love of ease, and let go if the pressure on it 

g 2 



84 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



be too great. But in cairn weather, if the stream be 
stronger than usual, if there be anything to be done with 
the tow-rope, more than walking with it along the level 
bank, something is sure to go amiss. This would be the 
case under ordinary conditions ; but ours were for the 
moment unusual. We had given when custom did not 
authorize the gift, and forgiven when all precedent re- 
quired us to punish ; and, worst of all, we did not under- 
stand each other. Driven by necessity, we were picking 
up a few words of Arabic, but Ibrahim was still, in any 
but the most ordinary circumstances, our only means of 
communication with reis or crew. By him everything we 
did was more or less misrepresented : partly owing to his 
ignorance of Italian; more, perhaps, to the desire to be of 
importance, that made him translate a request into an im- 
perious order, a question into a complaint; but most often 
purposely. For he was one of the very few really vicious 
men I have ever met : a man who would do evil rather than 
good, for evil's own sake. Fortunately, he was a coward 
as well as bad, and fear of consequences will probably 
restrain him from crime. The reis was a good old fellow 
for an Arab, whose character C. and I sketched at this 
time in almost identical terms. Old and childish, charm- 
ing and distracting, irascible and goodhearted, willing 
and hardworking, but incapable and incompetent. No 
wonder that everybody loves him and nobody respects 
him, and that each man stops to criticise his orders 
instead of obeying them. 



SLOW WORK. 



S3 



The part of the river we were at was difficulty and we 
spent two days over about as many miles. On the first 
morning, as we rounded a corner soon after starting, 
the dahabeah, badly steered, sheered out across the 
stream. No one was ready to pay out a few more yards 
of tow-rope, and the men, pulled backwards, had barely 
time to rid themselves of the traces that passed from the 
rope round their breast, and save themselves from being 
jerked over a steep bank into the river. Fortunately, they 
just escaped, and the boat alone went headlong downwards. 
One of the men remaining with us sprang instantly into 
the felucca, but, as usual, she was cumbered with things 
that ought not to have been in her, and had nothing on 
board that ought to have been there, and, before she 
could be got ready, the stream carried us in to the shore. 
After much delay, we made another attempt, and plenty 
of tow-rope being given out, it was easily successful. 
A few hundred, yards above this scene of our mischance, 
there was a shelving nick in the generally perpendicular 
bank, in which were clustered three or four country boats. 
The indentation, looking like a watering-place for cattle 
on a large scale, offered a small dead-water refuge from 
the fierce stream that was runnings outside it, and we 
turned joyfully in for rest and talk over the event that 
had happened. 

Once in this haven of repose and gossip, the reis 
begged to be allowed to remain. "It was not possible for 
his men to tow against such a current ; we could sleep 



86 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



here in safety should no breeze spring up, for a village 
inhabited by men of remarkable virtue was close at hand; 
but this town once passed, we should enter upon the 
most dangerous part of the whole Nile. My book 
(Murray) would tell me what bad people lived there- 
abouts. Had not the pasha been obliged last year to shoot 
hundreds of them ? And only a week ago a dahabeah, 
that stopped at the village ahead I was making inquiries 
about, was attacked, robbed, and two of her crew were 
murdered. There was not a man on board with us who 
would not sooner run away than stop there. The hawa- 
ger did not believe in the murders ; well, let him look 
at the stream, and remember that the men's stomachs 
were empty, and the men themselves weak with the fast." 

I did look. We were in the deepest part of the concave 
side of a deep bend of the river. The bank was eight or 
ten feet high ; as far as I could see there was no spot in 
it, except the one we occupied, at which a boat could 
have stopped. Every moment the undermined soil came 
crashing into the river, falling in tons at a time, and 
throwing the water as high as the bank-top. The stream 
was strong, though not strong enough to prevent us tow- 
ing against it ; but we hated to see the weary plodding of 
the fasting crew, and remained where we were, to get 
through, with the best patience we could, one of the few 
very disagreeable days we had to pass on the Nile. The 
weather was hot; the boats we were wedged in amongst 
were laden with country produce for the down- stream 



AN UNPLEASANT AFTERNOON 87 



markets. The bight we all lay in was also the watering- 
place of the women, and the bathing-place of the men ; 
and the cackling and screaming, the gabbling and gob- 
bling of the poultry, turkeys, and peasants were hard to 
bear. With the setting sun, however, the people went to 
their food, the flies to their rest, and we almost forgot 
the discomforts of the day in the beauty of an evening 
that was lit up by a moon and stars, such as are never 
seen in our foggy north, and made musical by the cries of 
vast flocks of geese and other night-feeding birds. 

The next day was again dead calm, but as a matter of 
course we were towed up the stream that yesterday was 
declared to be impassable without wind; and when at 
midday we reached the village of evil reputation, I was 
asked to anchor, and we did so. Short as was the dis- 
tance we had made, it was not accomplished without much 
discussion and wrangling. The incapacity of the reis 
was in keeping with his irritability, and on a par with 
the idleness of the crew. We came to a quarrel, which 
ended in my enforcing obedience, and on his part in the 
expression of a desire to put my shoe on his head, 
accompanied by a silent determination to continue the 
course of opposition on which he had embarked. 

On . the 19th,. there was a change. The storm in- 
board and the calm outside of the previous days gave 
place to heavy squalls, both inside and out. We got 
under weigh rather early, ran aground, and then 
ashore, and by the time we were dressed, we found 



88 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DR A GO MAX. 



ourselves running along Gebel el Aridi, with a fine 
favourable breeze. Soon afterwards, when at break- 
fast, we came to the point where the mountain abuts 
on the river before falling back inland. Of a sudden the 
boat, with a quick lurch, leant unpleasantly over, and our 
coffee and milk flew from the table on to a divan. From 
the deck there rose up a hideous noise. Everybody 
screamed at his highest pitch, and an Arab's voice in fear 
is more powerful than melodious. The sails flapped with 
cracks like pistol shots, and the boat rolled about like a 
runaway horse shaking himself free from control. We looked 
out at the cabin door, and saw that the sheet of the main- 
sail was loose, and was lashing the deck with a force 
sufficient to knock a man down. A heavy gust of wind 
had come down the mountain's side, and was discharging 
its fury on the river; whilst our people, in extremity of 
fear, were all huddled together by the side of our door. 
The wind screamed, the sail thrashed the deck, the water 
seethed in white foam, and a duo of rival prayers was 
howled out by our Mussulman crew and Coptic servants. 
For the second time in our short voyage, Said's aid was 
invoked, and a piteous wail of " m isericorde " was sent up to 
some Christian saint. For a minute things looked so 
nasty that I told C. to push aside the table, and to come 
with a large air mattrass to the cabin door. This she at 
once did, with her habitual courage and an obedience that 
did her credit. But the days of the Lotus were not 
yet numbered; the squall passed almost as quickly as it 



ALL THINGS GOOD IN SEASON. 



89 



came, and, as it had driven us from under the gebel, all 
danger was over. 

When all was made snug again we called for Ibrahim, 
to inquire how it came about that we had been so nearly- 
upset. Probably he had not recovered his senses, for he 
answered so insolently, that, in a moment of exasperation, 
I caught up my stick ; but he saved me from striking 
him. At the sistfit of it his face became contorted and 
livid ; and he rushed from the cabin screaming with 
panic. In a minute or two I forced him to come back, 
and listened to his protestations that he had been beside 
himself with fear, and did not know what he was saying 
when he spoke. My fortunate explosion of temper had 
given us the key to the ftian's character. Equally deaf 
to kindness and reproof, the language of the stick was 
the only one he understood ; and it was always listened 
to with entire submission. From this day he was a 
changed animal ; and putting off the qualities of his type, 
— the Egyptian buffalo — he assumed, with occasional re- 
lapses, the character of an ordinary boor. 

The breeze continued steady for the rest of the day ; 
and but for the unpleasant feelings of distrust our escape 
left behind, we should have had one of the most enjoy- 
able, as well as quickest, runs we made ; for at 7 p.m. we 
found ourselves at Mensheh, fifty-four miles from our 
morning's starting point. But the difficulties we at this 
time found in managing our people, and the knowledge 
that in the incapacity of the reis and the abject cowardice 



90 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



of the crew we were carrying with us a constant source 
of danger ^ not a little damped our enjoyment, 

For some distance above Mensheh the scenery is 
peculiar, and exceedingly pretty. The higher chain 
of mountains falls back from the Nile in semi-cir- 
cular form; inside it there are two distinct smaller 
ranges of hills, that nearest the riyer being the lowest. 
The narrow flat between this last and the bank is covered 
with crops, interspersed with clumps of palms, mimosas, 
and sycamores. The landscape is a vast amphitheatre : 
the foreground a sea of vivid green broken by islands of 
trees; the back composed of tier on tier of bright yellow- 
red sand and sandstone coloured hills. Then again the 
mountains abut on the river. Their face is dotted with 
caverns of old date, and with quarries worked for lime- 
stone at the present day. 

The scene was a busy one as we sailed by. Hundreds of 
men were quarrying the stone, rolling it down the steep 
mountain side, and lading the score of large boats wait- 
ing to receive it. As soon as we passed from under 
the shelter, the breeze freshened into a strong wind; 
and we went staggering along with a rolling motion that 
was far from pleasant, and at a rate of speed that by no 
means did justice to our propelling power. By the 
time we had run by Grirgeh, a wretched enough looking 
capital of a well-to-do province, the boat yawed about 
as none but an empty craft with plenty of top hamper 
can do ; and we became convinced that, in spite of the 



FATALISM. 



9i 



reassuring answers we had received to many inquiries 
respecting the ballast, we had taken in too little, or per- 
haps none at all. Not contenting ourselves this time with 
mere questions, we soon found that the last conjecture 
was the true one ; and that our danger was still further 
increased by the stowage in lockers on the upper deck 
of many hundredweight of the nien's bread and pulse. 
So many objections were raised to moving their food into 
the hold, and the ground — that it might be damaged or 
dirtied by the rats and mice — was so comparatively rea- 
sonable, that we permitted it to remain where it was; 
but we ordered the boat to be stopped at the next gebel, 
and sufficient stone to be taken on board to bring the 
vessel to her proper trim. The reis answered that this 
was quite useless, and worse than useless ; for putting 
ballast in the boat made her heavier to tow; and that if 
Allah meant us to drown, ballast or no ballast, we shou]d 
drown. We replied that he spoke the words of wisdom 
and of truth ; but that Allah, we believed, helped those 
who helped themselves ; and that if the bread couldn't 
go into the hold, some stone should. Cowards as these 
people are, they are still greater idlers ; and between 
their fanaticism and their idleness they will sail a boat so 
light -laden as to be absolutely unsafe. 

There now ensued a struggle between us and the crew, 
as to whether ballast should be taken in or not. With 
their usual tactics, entire acquiescence in our wishes was 
expressed, and every dodge practised to prevent then 1 



92 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



fulfilment. We were running through a flat and stoneless 
country where the mountains fell back from the river; but 
by sunset we should have reached Gebel Took, who sits 
with his feet in the water. But the bad sailing of the boat 
natural to her want of trim, was aggravated by the steer- 
ing ; and as the sun went down, we were still some miles 
from the hills. The night was very cold, the result of the 
strong norther we had had for two days, and we went 
below, leaving orders to stop for the night at the nearest 
convenient place to the mountain, and that ballast should be 
taken on board the next morning. Hour after hour went 
by, and still we sailed on with a steady breeze. My every 
inquiry was answered by an assurance that the village was 
close to us where the reis wished to stop. A safe village ; 
for we were in a bad country, and the gebel, not yet 
reached, was inhabited by fearful cutthroats. 

Repeating our orders, not on any account to pass the 
gebel, and thinking it probable that they would be dis- 
obeyed, we went to bed. Waking at twelve, to find our- 
selves still steadily travelling, we could have no more 
doubt that the men were trying to run by the mountains 
in the night. I dressed, and rang for Ibrahim and the reis. 
The last could not understand a word of my Arabic ; the 
first was so sleepy, that he had quite lost his small property 
in Italian. But I was out of temper at having to get up in 
the cold, and some words, emphasised with a flourish of 
the stick rather close to Ibrahim's nose, at once restored 
him to consciousness. " Ah, non preso rabbia, signor/'he 



A STRUGGLE. 



93 



shouted out ; and then, with his eye constantly on the 
stick, he quickly repeated to the reis all I had been 
saying. The already oft-told story was of course again 
recited to me. Not a single village had been passed 
since nightfall ; the mountain had not been reached; the 
people hereabouts were very wicked, and the most 
desirable place for a halt was close before us. I gave 
him ten minutes by my watch to reach it, and a positive 
order if he had not done so at that time, to lower his 
sails and float back to the nearest place of safety. 
Within the time named we had made fast. 

In the morning we were woke by preparations on deck, 
very quietly made, for getting under weigh. Looking 
out of the cabin window at the side of my bed, I saw 
that, as I expected, we had already passed Gebel Took, 
and were well within the flat country beyond. No time 
was to be lost. As the sun rises, so does the north wind, 
during the three or four days of its generally successive 
continuance; and if we did not get back at once, we 
should not do so that day. In an hour's time we should 
have had to choose between the loss of forty miles, and 
a defeat from our scheming crew. Slipping on some 
clothes, I summoned the reis to the main cabin. He 
regretted having passed the mountains by accident in 
the night ; but it did not signify, there were others a 
day's sail or so farther on ; we would start at once, and 
soon reach them. " No/' I said, " go back." " Go back ! 
it was impossible. The wind was too good to lose ; the 



94 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



wind was too strong to allow of our return ; lie could not 
go down stream against it, unless lie lowered his yard, 
and it was a day's work to take this down, and another's 
perhaps to put it up. There were oars it was true, but 
they could not be used, because the -hold (we had yester- 
day seen empty) was full ; and besides, there were no 
stones at all on Grebel Took/' It is necessary to have 
seen the foot of an Egyptian mountain to measure the 
full daring of this last assertion ; but while recognising 
the old man's courage, I was deaf to his arguments, and 
even also to the pathetic entreaties that followed. " Would 
I only do him the kindness to allow him to go on ■ he 
would be my slave ; would eat dirt before me ; would live 
with my shoe for ever on his grey head." 

Indignantly I turned him out, with directions to cast off 
immediately, and return to the mountain. Then, dressing 
as quickly as possible, I went on deck. The breeze was 
already blowing fresh and steady. A dark line on the 
river below, showed that it was coming up in force, and 
that in another half-hour our return would for the day 
have been impossible. The boat was floating broadside 
in the river, nicely balanced between wind and stream, 
and almost as stationary as if she had been at anchor. 
Not an oar was at work, and the men were sitting sulkily 
with their heads in their capotes, and backs to the wind. 
I ordered the oars to be instantly worked. No one but 
Abed moved; so walking to Mahomed, the greatest 
talker and worst man in the ship, I told him instantly 



CONTRITION, 



95 



to take an oar, pointing to it with, uplifted stick. He 
funked, and doing as he was bid, we escaped an open 
mutiny and appeal to some official free from Western 
prejudice against the bastinado. The other men went 
directly to the oars, and just as the dark line* reached 
us, the boat was rounding to, her head close to the 
gebePs foot. 

The old man went ashore with his crew. When a 
few yards off, he stopped and addressed them for 
some minutes ; then, stooping, he filled his hands with 
sand, and poured it on his head. The action was easy 
to understand. Prompted by them, or some one of them, 
he had played for the mastership of the dahabeah, and 
had been made to eat dirt. He was ashamed of himself, 
or of his defeat, and upbraided them as the cause of his 
shame. 

In a very short time the empty hold was well lined 
with ballast, our mooring was thrown off, and we, in very 
different trim, went bowling up stream. The reis came 
on the poop deck, and I showed him four small clumps 
of masts in the two or three miles immediately below us, 
denoting as many villages where we could have stopped 
in good company the night before. " Four ! " said Ibra- 
him, at my shoulder. " I see five or six. Non vecle, si- 
gnor ?" He was as blind as a bat, and could not at 
100 yards' distance distinguish between a palm-tree and 
a lateen sail ; but the reis was beaten, and Ibrahim, cur- 
like, snapped at his heels. 



96 THE NILE WITHOUT A DR A GO MAX. 



Going below, we wrote the above account of what 
had happened. Then calling in the reis, we showed 
him the record of his misdeeds, in that black and 
white so fearful to an uneducated man ; and told him 
that it depended upon his future conduct whether this 
should be sent or not to his employer as a com- 
plaint against him. Probably not much of my Arabic 
eloquence reached him, and he credited me with saying 
more biting things than I was capable of; for my speech 
produced an effect that not a little shocked us. Touching 
my foot with his hand, he placed it on his head ; then 
dissolving into tears, he stood wiping his eyes with the 
skirts of his clothing. We were exceedingly sorry for 
the poor old man. In spite of his tricks and his lies, — that 
is, in spite of his Arab blood, — his kindness of heart 
and dignity, as well as softness of manner, made him 
so attaching, that it was most difficult not to spoil 
the effect of our victory by an expression of sympathy. 
But we contented ourselves with tying up most formally 
the sheet of our ]\IS., and hoping that it would never be 
unbound. 

How clear is the sky after a gale of wind ! We had 
been living for a week in a very tempest; and now the 
storm had passed, the rain had fallen, the clouds were 
rolled away, and in and out of the ship not a speck 
could be seen to mar the serenity of the sky, or dull the 
transparency of the atmosphere. Gaily and gracefully 
the boat bent to the breeze, and held a straight course in 



AFTER A STORM, A CALM. 



97 



ready obedience to the helm. Equally quick was the 
alacrity of every one on board to obey orders. Mahomet, 
the wit of the ship, who had hitherto done nothing but 
aggravate us by his unintelligible Arabic jokes (it is 
most disagreeable to see men loudly laughing at gibes 
one does not understand, and sometimes suspects to be 
made at one's expense) — Mahomet, whose conduct had 
been constantly idle, and sometimes almost mutinous, 
actually climbed the yard and helped to furl the sail ; whilst 
Ibrahim became grotesque in his endeavours to forestall 
our wishes. His hitherto continuously bad behaviour had 
earned for him the nickname of the Euffian. Xow we 
were enabled to change his soubriquet, and call him the 
Reformed. But, alas, it was not long before,his nature re- 
asserting herself, he became the Relapsed; and so by 
quick alternations from bad to worse, and from worse to 
bad, he won for himself a dozen names, until he finally 
took rank under Mr. Bruce' s Act, as "the Habitual." 

On the 26th, we stopped to victual at Wishna. We 
were attracted by the crowds of country people and 
masses of country edibles, we saw hurrying and being 
hurried to the market. Over and above both produce 
and people, and representing perhaps a little of both, or at 
least a link between the two, were three, what our fathers 
would have called, Barbary apes. They gravely walked 
and ran by the sides of their masters, who scarcely 
slackened their pace to accommodate the shorter strides 
of their companions. It soon became known that we were 

H 



9S 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



buying chickens. A fellah first tried a deal with Gir« 
ghis, who, as he asked double the market price, would 
have nothing to do with him, and went to the bazaar. 
The man, Girghis out of sight, addressed himself to us ; 
we refusing, he sent the same chicken by three different 
girls, seeking to find favour in our eyes. The first two 
were plain, and could not sell the unfortunate pullet; 
but the third was so pretty that she could not be denied, 
and she received four piastres for the fowl, and as many 
more pour ses beaux yeux. Beauty in Egypt is scarce. 

From Wishna, we had a most lovely sail to Keneh, 
passing through some of the prettiest country we had yet 
seen. Belts and rows of palms encircled the cultivated 
ground; and the lines of trees and the curve of the 
banks, as well as the plots of land, were constantly 
broken by clumps of palms, or by thickets of mimosas, 
and the fan-leaved dom palm. The new corn was already 
well up, and the foreground, where the banks were 
sloping, looked like a green Thames lawn running down 
to the water's edge. The landscape, too, was set in a 
frame of the first mountains we had seen in Egypt. We 
have spoken of mountains before, taking the word from 
Murray, and using the literal translation of the Arabic 
term gebel • but the Egyptian hills, up to this point of 
the river, are in every sense cliffs ; flat topped, precipi- 
tous sided, barren, and of rock formation. The mountains 
we now saw were sharp in their outlines, wavy in their 
undulations, and more or less sloping in face. 



CHAPTER X. 



KENEH TO ESNE. 

On our arrival at Kenehthe reis was taken ill. The poor old 
fellow had been sick after his evening meal, and I found 
him so weak that he could scarcely stand, with cold per- 
spiration on the forehead ; and a pulse barely perceptible. 
The symptoms were not difficult to account for. He 
had broken a fourteen hours' rigid fast by swallowing, as 
greedily as such an abstinence made natural, a handful of 
sweet dates, a lapful of raw onions, and a barley roll, 
bigger than his fist, just baked, heavy, and utterly indi- 
gestible, as only an Arab barley roll can be. Nature by 
a timely rebellion against such brutal treatment, freed his 
faint old stomach from oppression, and prepared it for a dose 
of Liebig and cognac, to be followed an hour or so after- 
wards by a couple of cutlets. For two or three days the old 
man continued so weak that I began to be alarmed ; he 
could not be induced to break the fast, and it was wretched 
work to see him getting fainter and fainter as the day 
wore on. But there was nothing to be done. " Tou may 
cut my throat," he said, " but you cannot make me eat." 
We told him that the soup was medicine. " Not smoke, 
nor bread, nor water, nor medicine, he replied, should 
cross his Hps till the day's fast was over ; and if he died 
for want of the medicine, why it was Allah's will, and it 

H 2 



IOO 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



was good." So we had to content ourselves with making 
ready the soup and cognac, and administering them as 
soon after sunset as we dared. For it was we who gave 
the signal that the day's penance was over. At the large 
towns a gun is fired nightly through Ramadan, to let the 
Mussulman world know that eating and smoking may be 
resumed without sin. Out of reach of the sound of the 
gun, the men have to guess the moment of legality, 
unless some watch-possessing infidel is by, to save the 
true believer from needless fasting, or impatient fault. 
At Cairo, we were requested to note the minute of the 
gun's discharge, and every day afterwards the weaker 
vessels of the crew assembled in front of us, and 
anxiously waited for our signal to fall to and drink the 
coffee that was waiting, or to light the cigarette already 
rolled. So long as the reis was well we were virtuous, 
or nearly so, and would not make it 5.15 p.m., until the 
watch hand approached the desired quarter; but it was 
impossible to look at the old man's wan face, as the long 
minutes after sundown dragged slowly by, and not to 
fudge. We did so a night or two after leaving Keneh 
and the men were already hard at work eating, drink- 
ing, smoking, when the boom of a very distant gun 
floated over us with the gentle evening air. The crew 
sprang up aghast, the reis spat out his mouthful of food 
with rage, and for a moment I was afraid that they would 
think we had been tricking them intentionally into an 
offence against Ramadan. So we instantly called the 



EXTREMES MEET. 



101 



reis and Radouan, and showed our watches,, which, as 
they did not understand they were ready to believe, in 
proof that the hour was the same they had told us to 
note at Cairo ; and as it would have been useless to 
explain that the watches had gone fast, we fell back on 
the fact, that as we were some hundred miles farther 
south, the sun set here somewhat later. Eadouan knew 
this, he said, to be true. Then, we added, it is clear, that 
the man who fired the gun took his time from the sun, 
and had not fired it according to the true Cairo time. 
He was wrong, and they had not broken their fast : look 
at the watch ! They were hungry and content. 

Extremes, somebody has said, meet. Had he wanted 
an example, he might have pointed to Ramadan. Here 
is a fast of the most trying character, made part of 
the most sensual of religions, and scrupulously observed 
by all the uneducated portion of the most material 
of peoples. A Mussulman's life is a constant seeking 
after and enjoyment of such animal pleasures as fall within 
his reach ; his idea of a future state the supply and demand 
without limit of such gratifications. Yet this sensualist 
endures for thirty days in every year, a mode of life as 
different from his present one and his hoped-for future, 
as it is severe, trying to his health, and opposed to 
common sense. 

We saw the effect of Ramadan in winter; but what 
must that effect be when, with the changing seasons, it 
falls in midsummer, and the long hot day has to be 



io2 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



passed in a state of total abstinence ! What a number 
of old men and of weakly men it must kill ! Could this 
have been the intention that prompted its institution 
by the prophet of the sword ? That thus the favoured 
race might be kept strong, and hereditary disease die out ? 
If so, Mahomet was perhaps an unconscious exponent of 
the Darwin theory, and a promoter of the principle of 
natural selection. 

Arrived at Keneh, we were within the Thebaid, and 
not 40 miles from Luxor and Karnak. Our voyage was 
so far accomplished, that we had reached the district whose 
perfect climate it was our main object to enjoy, and we 
determined to make short journeys, and parcel out the 
400 miles still navigable, so that each day of the remain- 
ing winter should have its ration of novelty and change. 
So we began to start late and stop early ; waiting on the 
breeze, and ignoring the tow-rope. Thoroughly, under 
this system, did we enjoy ourselves. The men were as 
active and good tempered as if Eamadan was over ; the 
atmosphere was clear, and bright as it is only in this 
country ; the scenery made up of just the proper mixture of 
land and water, of trees and crops, of desert and mountain. 

The fellaheen differed very much from their brethren 
on the Lower Nile. Farther from the seat of government, 
they are less governed and more prosperous. They 
have the appearance of being better fed ; their bearing is 
more independent, and they clothe themselves as if from 
a knowledge of good and evil, and not for warmth only. 



BOTTLE-RAFTS. 



Here the Egyptian winter was over. Deciduous trees are 
not common, but we passed some already green • and on 
Dec. 23j I saw one in full young leaf, that looked at a 
hundred yards' distance like an English thorn on May- day. 

On the river near El Ballas we met several rafts, 
formed entirely of the earthen bottles in which the 
Egyptian women carry water. These Ballas jars (for, 
made at El Ballas, they take their name from the 
village) are not porous like the goolahs. Nearly two 
feet high, and fining to a round point at the bottom, 
they are carried on the head, the end resting in a roll 
or circlet of cotton cloth or rag; The jar holding per- 
haps two gallons, is, when full, so heavy, that it is often 
most difficult for the women without assistance to get it 
upon their heads. They therefore, as a rule, go to the 
watering-places in pairs, or in a body ; but we often saw 
one who happened to be alone lift the jar on to the edge 
of the steep bank above her, and stoop to bring her head 
underneath it. The jar once raised is carried as lightly 
and gracefully as if it were nothing heavier than a chi- 
gnon; and I have seen a delicate looking woman stand for 
five minutes at a time with this crushing burden on her 
head, arrested by no greater attraction than ourselves, 

The jars transport themselves and owners to the down- 
river markets. Bound together by palm-tree fibre, they 
are formed into a raft two or three jars deep, and 60 
by 50 feet perhaps wide. Each raft is provided with 
a helm and oars, fitted like the timber rafts of Europe, 



104 THE XILE WITHOUT A DR A GO MAX. 



but made of rough untrimmed branches, and is sufficiently 
buoyant to hold out of the water the upper tier of jars, 
and the four or five men in charge. 

Our Christmas- day was spent close to El Ballas, and 
what a Christmas-day ! It was so hot, that in spite of 
awnings. C. was for once driven from the deck • and in our 
cabins, which felt cool by comparison with the outer air, 
the thermometer stood at 80°. The climate was simply 
perfect. So we said each day; and each day, as we 
went further south; proved by its increasing charm that 
we had been rash in our assertion of the day before. 
To breathe, to live in it, was sufficient. So vivid was the 
colouring, so sharp the outlines, that we who could not 
draw regretted a dozen times a day that we had not with 
us a box of colours. Everything was so clear, that- it 
seemed as if nothing could be easier than to fix on paper 
that which the eye saw sd distinctly; and if a man who 
had never touched a pencil could use it anywhere, it 
would be in the Thebaid. As almost any one can speak 
who thoroughly knows his subject and can forget himself, 
so surely the most unpractised hand could express out- 
lines so defined and colour so marked. 

On the next day a gentle breeze carried us up to 
Karnak, and we drew up for luncheon alongside the 
bank opposite the ruins. Then, as it proved most 
difficult to reach them from this spot, we got under 
weigh again, and ran up to Luxor, the most convenient 
halting-place from whence to visit the Theban ruins. "We 



SOFT SOAP. 



105 



found there three dahabeahs, two of which I not a little 
envied for their size, cleanliness, wealth of comfort, and 
pretty lady's-maids. The wash was going on, and it was 
pleasant to see the white round arms doing daintily the 
work that we had begun to think especially the place of 
Ibrahims and Arab sailors. By the bye, has anv one 
before remarked on the cunning; and subtle influence 
exercised by soap and water on Arab temperament. 
Ibrahim always yielded to its softening power, and in the 
middle even of a break out, the Habitual became, for the 
tub-dav, human. The change was no coincidence, but a 
regularly recurring fact \ and as often as he replaced his 
tarboosh by a handkerchief, rolled up his sleeves, and 
girt his loins, preparatory to a hard day's work with the 
soapsuds, the generally irrational mule became a good- 
tempered washerman. 

C. in the afternoon went over the ruins of the Luxor 
temple, accompanied by Mustapha Aghar, our unpaid and 
obliging consular agent, who if possible outdid his cus- 
tomary civility and attention in favour of a friend of Lady 
Duff Gordon. The high, over-high in our judgment, 
estimate of Arab character, formed by Lady Gordon, and 
expressed in her published letters, as well as her constant 
kindness and care for the sick and poor within reach of 
Luxor, has caused her memory to.be almost worshipped 
by the Theban people of all classes. From the aghar to 
the beggar, nobody has any but good words for her, and 
few can say of these enough. 



io6 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



We were disappointed in Luxor. The rains are 
massive without beauty, and in niassiveness are far in- 
ferior to those of Karnak. The town is small, and in 
itself has little character. There are no trees, nothing 
but a sandy bank, between it and the river, and 
its appearance is neither striking nor attractive. Lady 
Gordon's house is a modern white building, stuck like 
a mushroom on the top of an off-part of the ruins of 
the ancient temple. In front of it lies the river, behind 
is a rubbishy courtyard, on all sides a sea of dust, and 
not one tree or single speck of green affords an atom of 
shade or repose to the eye, weary of the heat and glare, 
the dust and dirt. A more uninviting habitation it would 
be hard to find; and if evidence were wanted of the per- 
fection of the Theban climate, would it not be sufficient 
to point out that such a person as Lady Duff Gordon 
endured the exile and discomforts of Luxor for its 
climate's sake. 

On the morning after our arrival at this usual halting- 
place for dahabeahs, we were woke by a number of shots 
fired close by, and looked out to see the arrival of another 
boat. A man was dancing on her deck, and marking time 
by discharging the barrels of a revolver. Ibrahim was 
instantly knocking at the door, and begging for our 
solitary gun that he might return the salute. It is a 
common and foolish habit on the Nile for dahabeahs to 
salute each other by firing guns and pistols. "We used 
to content ourselves with dipping our ensign, unless the 



SALUTING. 



107 



saluter was a foreigner, in which case Ibrahim was per- 
mitted to gratify bis desire to make a noise ; and the 
figure be cut under tbe mixed sensations of awkwardness, 
fear, and importance, was wortby tbe bumour tbat drew 
Seymour's sketches. But if be was ridiculous, he was 
not safe ; and I was best pleased when, as often happened, 
both barrels went off together, and the empty gun ren- 
dered him harmless. 

Out of humour with Luxor, and finding, in our de- 
termination to see the sights on our return voyage, 
an excuse to leave it, we set sail at 9 a.m., and made 
our way to Bajoor, the port of Erment. The village 
opposite contained the homes of the reis and of two of the 
crew, and we had determined to stop there a couple of 
nights, in order to give the three men a holiday. Poor 
people ! much of their pleasure in the gift was destroyed 
by the manner of the giving ; for, ignorant at that time of 
how dear it is to the Arab heart to gain what he wants by 
trickery, and how infinitely less valuable is anything that 
comes of free gift, we told them at Luxor of our inten- 
tion. It was hard upon them, and unkindly done. They 
were like a gambler who, about to play for a stake he 
desires much, and thinks himself safe to win, sees it 
made into a rouleau and handed over to him before even 
the cards are cut. There was no room for intrigue, and 
lies were rendered purposeless. Still they could be told ; 
and on the principle that virtue is its own reward, they 
perhaps took some pleasure in describing Bajoor as 



108 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 

twenty-four miles from Luxor, and eight from Esne, as 
it is not, instead of being the eight miles only distant 
from Luxor that it is. 

Towns on the Nile, which are not on the Nile, but a 
mile or two perhaps inland, have ports, and call them 
' bajoor/ The Bajoor of Erment is a very pretty place, on 
the northern bank. Avenues of very large sycamores 
run alongside the river and far inland, giving shade and 
shelter to the roads that lead to Erment. On the south 
bank is a lovely view. A green slope fringes the water's 
edge. Two or three villages, standing a little back, are 
scattered along it, and their never-failing groups of 
palms, mimosas, and sycamores almost touch each other, 
whilst on the downstream side is a glorious background 
of desert and mountain. 

We remained for a couple of days at Bajoor. The 
weather was hot: 87 degrees in our cabin at midday, 
and still higher on the awning- covered deck. But it 
was pleasant enough under the shade of the huge spread- 
ing trees; and the native passers-by with donkeys, 
buffaloes, and camels, gave us quite as much distraction 
as the heat made desirable ; so we yielded a ready assent 
to the request of the reis and his two countrymen for 
another day at home. It was a mistake ; it always is a 
mistake to be goodnatured in Egypt, and the very next 
day, the crew, encouraged by our weakness, recom- 
menced the conduct we hoped they had abandoned. 

Esne was only a few miles above us, and we had pro- 



TRICKSTERS TRICKED. 



109 



mised to stop a day there for bread baking. It became 
immediately their object to add to the promised day an 
Irishman's bit of one. With this view, it was necessary 
to stop us for the night short of Esne, but so near it that 
an hour or half an hour's sail the next morning should 
land us there. Thus, the day of our arrival not being 
complete, there would be no fulfilment of our promise, 
and they would have turned their twenty-four hours of 
ease into forty-six. The weather was against them, and 
made it difficult to carry out their plan, for the breeze 
was strong and favourable. Still, with a good will, 
plenty of lies, and Allah's blessing, all things are 
possible. First, the liberty men did not return in 
the morning. The reis came, thought they had mis- 
taken the hour at which we had ordered a start, 
went in search, and in the search wasted the morning. 
Then, when off, the boat became afflicted with her inter- 
mittent refusal to sail or to steer. The slack water was 
declared to be infested with sandbanks, and to avoid the 
perils of the passage, it was constantly necessary to cross 
from side to side, and always advisable to hold a course in 
midcurrent. At dusk, leave to stop was asked for, Esne 
being still many hours' sail distant. Our map told us that 
this was not true; but time was no object, the country 
was highly picturesque, and we did not care to run 
through it in the dark. So we made fast, and woke 
the next morning to find Esne in sight, barely three 
miles off. 



no THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 

It was a dead calm ; a strong stream ran down the 
bank best fitted for towing, and we determined to 
inflict a little punishment. The hated tow-rope was, 
therefore, ordered out, and we were slowly and labor- 
iously dragged up to Esne through the sweltering heat. 
Nor did we omit to point the moral of our lesson ; and the 
reis was told, in the hearing of his hot and weary crew, 
how sorry we were that they had made such a mistake 
yesterday about the distance, and what a pity it was that 
so much time had been lost, both in the start and on the 
road ; but for these various mischances they might have 
all been lying asleep at Esne, their heads well wrapped 
in their capotes, instead of toilsomely tugging at that 
odious rope. 



CHAPTER XI. 

ESNE TO ASSOUAN. 

If I were asked where is to be found the most perfect 
winter climate in the world, with the boldness of assertion 
that ignorance of any but a very small portion of it would 
render natural and justifiable, I should unhesitatingly 
reply, "At Esne." We stopped there for two or three 
days, both in going up and coming down, and on either 
occasion enjoyed the very perfection of weather. Neither 
too hot nor too fresh, and with a very even temperature, 
there was yet sufficient variation between the night 
and day. We sat on deck till bed-time, and were 
glad of a blanket in bed. The comparative freshness of 
the early morning nerved us for the heat of the day. 
The afternoon's warmth made us welcome the morning's 
cool. The light was most vivid, and yet there was little 
glare. In the air there was a balminess and serenity 
indescribable. 

The town is a good specimen of an Egyptian 
provincial capital, and there is a charming anchoring 
place at the lower end of it, opposite the pasha's 
palace and garden. There we lay in company with two 
other dahabeahs : one full of some pasha's u family," as 
his wives are euphemistically called • the other belonging 
to an Italian invalid who, we were told, passes the great 



112 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN, 



part of most winters here. Esne is the last town of 
the cheap part of Upper Egypt. Above it provisions 
are not really dearer until Assouan is left behind, but 
as in Nubia very little can be bought, all dahabeahs 
about to pass the first cataract take with them pro- 
visions necessary for their stay in the black country, as 
the Arabs call it. Should you, therefore, be so impro- 
vident as to arrive at Assouan with a short supply of 
chickens or mutton, prices will be ruled by your necessity 
rather than by the value of the stock you require. Fore- 
warned of this, we laid in our stores at Esne. The felucca 
was turned into a sheep pen, the turkey and chicken coops 
were prepared, and we got together for the three or four 
weeks we proposed to remain in Nubia a small farm, 
consisting of two sheep, half a dozen turkeys, and two 
dozen chickens. The sheep, weighed perhaps forty-five 
to fifty pounds, were in tolerable condition, and cost us 
25 francs the pair. The price was looked upon as 
extravagant by our people ; for a very few years since, 
more than 5 francs was never demanded for a sheep. 
For the turkeys we paid 2s. 3d. to Is. 4cl. each, accord- 
ing to size; for the chickens, 6d. apiece; for eggs, Id. 
for six. We also laid in a good supply of grain for the 
poultry, and of beans for the sheep ; and I began to 
feed these last, to the crew's great astonishment with 
chopped sugarcane. They ate it tolerably well, and 
with sufficient appetite to raise my credit with the men, 
who, hating all innovation, look upon anything new 



THE ACHMET DRAMA. 



113 



to them and on all experiment as evidence of idiocy. 
But whether we obtained from the saccharine diet the 
fat results anticipated, it is impossible to say. Fat the 
sheep certainly got, filling out in a way most pleasing to 
a farmer's eye, but then beans without stint, and green 
barley at discretion, will make mutton though unaided 
by sugar. 

On the morning of our arrival, the reis asked leave of 
absence for Achmet, one of the men who had joined us 
at Alexandria. The man lived at Etfoo, thirty miles 
distant by water, but close at hand, they said, by land, 
and wished to walk across and rejoin us when the boat 
should reach Etfoo. He wanted to see his family. 
Now the Arabs are an affectionate people, fond of their 
wives and children, but they are also fond of their ease ; 
and as the map showed that the distance could not be 
less than twenty miles, it was certain that there was 
some reason for the request more urgent than the one 
assigned. By waiting we should be sure to hear it : so 
we refused. Then we learnt (we had not yet bought our 
live stock) that the turkeys- at Etfoo were the only good 
turkeys in Saeed;. that the chickens outnumbered the 
fleas, and the sheep were plentiful as blackberries at 
home in September ; that Etfoo was only five or six miles 
distant and, lastly, that Achmet's children had the small- 
pox. Would we but let him go to see how they were ? 
We said, certainly, he should go, and go at once, but he 
could not come back • and we went below to see what 

1 



ii4 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



we could find for the man that might be of use, and to 
calculate what we could give without inciting each of our 
men on the return voyage to have a house full of sick 
children, Before we had found the mean that would 
please Achmet, and not cause us to be left without boat- 
men, Ibrahim came to tell us that it was all a mistake. 
We had misunderstood the reis, and Achmet did not 
live near Etfoo ; Achmet had misunderstood the people 
who had told him about his children ; they were perfectly 
well, and his wife had walked across from the village he 
lived at, — a village close by, not near Etfoo at all, — and 
was with him now in Esne. 

We then knew that we were in for a fresh struggle. 
Our only chance of avoiding it lay in the immediate dis- 
missal of Achmet ; but this step seemed so unjust, that it 
was impossible. One could not dismiss a man because his 
children were sick. The alternatives remaining for our 
choice were almost equally disagreeable. Either to carry 
him past Etfoo and into Nubia for a month, without allow- 
ing him to see his family, or to run the serious risk of 
infection, consequent on his going home and returning 
on board. The first was inhuman, the second most dan- 
gerous; and as we thought over the fearful conse- 
quences of the smallpox finding its way into such a 
ship as ours, and in such a climate as that we were in, 
we determined to keep it out at all cost. In doubt as to 
what course to take, we agreed for the moment to do no- 
thing more than to order Achmet' s immediate return to 



FIRST ACT 



our dahabeah ; and then patiently, but watchfully, lest he 
should absent himself, to wait. 

That night we slept quietly enough, certain that 
Achmet' s home was too far distant to permit of his going 
there and returning before morning ; and the next day, a 
light breeze springing up betimes that promised to grow 
into strength, we started with the intention of running 
by Btfoo if the wind permitted. It was just possible 
that the men's last story, now constantly repeated with 
every kind of asseveration, was true, and that the chil- 
dren were not ill. In this case we should go on with our 
journey, and Achmet would lose no more than his night's 
holiday at honie. But if they were ill, we felt certain 
that he would not pass Etfoo without making an attempt 
to see them ; and we trusted to our vigilance to de- 
tect this, and prevent his return. The breeze belied its 
promise, and we made no more than ten miles a day for 
the next three days. During all this time the Achmet 
drama was being acted. Occasionally he was despond- 
ent ; and his bad spirits were pointed out to me as result- 
ing from the loss of his holiday. " He was very fond of 
his wife ; and was it not hard that he should not have 
the same leave that had been given to the other men ? 
Sickness there was none. Did the hawager think that 
the other men would permit his return among them if he 
once went into an infected house ? Never. They feared 
the smallpox ; it was a devil." 

At other moments he acted high spirits ; and I was 

i 2 



n6 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



asked to observe him. "Was that the demeanour of a 
man whose children were ill ? No ; he was happy be- 
cause he knew that the first report about them was false." 
It is astonishing the joy that an Arab takes in playing a 
part in an intrigue. All the energies of every man on 
board were devoted, during these three days, to the pro- 
secution of a scheme, whose success, if it were a gain to 
Achmet, would be to them a source of danger. Bach man 
went about his business with a sense of importance that 
was amusing, and an excess of willingness that was in 
itself suspicious. And it must not be supposed that this 
zeal was due to love of Achmet. He was not unpopular, 
but by no means a favourite on board ; and when they 
met him subsequently, Abed excepted, not a man cared 
to inquire how he was ; and no man, not even Abed, 
asked after his children. Their sole interest was in 
the play. 

To everything that was said we repeated the same 
answer ; and with such persistence, that we finally, I 
believe, licked it into fair Arabic. " If Achmet left the 
dahabeah, if he put foot on shore long enough to get out 
of sight, he should not return. Any man who went away 
without leave should be also left behind. But when we 
got to the point of the shore nearest to Achniet's house, 
he should land, with Ibrahim and C, to find a mes- 
senger ; and we would anchor whilst this man carried to 
his house a bundle of things we gave him to send, and 
returned with Mrs. Achmet. His wife on shore could 



SECOND ACT. 



117 



then give him on board news of his home. If he liked 
to return with her, he should do so ; or if he preferred to 
remain with us, we would keep him. But though he 
might see Mrs. Achmet, he must not touch her.-" If 
the plot was play to them, it was work to me ; for I 
had to get up every night to count the sleeping crew, 
and to make certain of Achnietfs presence. 

At last, on the afternoon of the 4th, we reached Etfoo ; 
and our offer to send the messenger was renewed. But 
every kind of story was invented, every sort of difficulty 
was raised to the proposition. " The messenger would 
cost too much " — we offered to pay ; " he could not find 
one; nobody here knew him or where he lived; his 
house was at Etfoo, close to it, half a mile off, one, two, 
three hours distant, fifteen miles off, and over a moun- 
tain. No ; if he couldn't go home to his wife for the 
night, he wouldn't stop at all ; his children were well, and 
he wanted no news of them." So we slowly passed 
Etfoo; and as with the light evening breeze we still 
stemmed the stream, every conceivable reason but the 
true one was advanced to induce us to stop for the night. 
Of course we refused, and continued our course. About 
7 p.m., when we were passing, or had perhaps already 
passed, the nearest point to Achmet' s house, the man 
gave in. " His children were ill ; he must know how they 
were ; would we stop ? " I cannot say how pleased we 
were. Oar hearts had been sinking lower and lower as 
we contemplated the possibility of carrying Achmet on, 



n8 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 

in ignorance of his children's state, because he preferred 
his place to them. 

It was too late for 0. to land; but we felt pretty cer- 
tain that the sick house was some little distance from the 
river, and we therefore permitted Achmet to do so. He 
went alone, for Ibrahim pleaded fear of the country people 
in the dark as a reason for not accompanying him. But 
as we put him ashore at a village on the bank, we pro- 
mised him half an hour in which to find a messenger, the 
utmost we dared allow in our ignorance of the position 
of his house ; and assured him that if in that time he 
had not returned, he should never put foot on board 
again. He would be back, he said, in a few minutes ; and 
taking the bundle already prepared, his staff, a kind of 
quarterstaff of the English fourteenth century, and lastly 
his slippers, he landed. Then I knew that he would 
not come back. An Arab's slippers are for ceremony 
and show ; a man puts them on as a matter of full dress. 
Achmet took them that his entry into his own house might 
be befitting his position of lord and master. To find a 
messenger he would have gone barefoot. In going home, 
anxious as he was, he still was mindful of his dignity. 

Watch in hand we waited the thirty minutes, yet ten 
minutes more, and then slowly, and with well-acted re- 
luctance, my order was obeyed, and the boat pushed off. 
The breeze had not fallen, and by its aid we passed across the 
river to the opposite bank, where we decided to remain for 
the night. The by-play of the reis and crew was worthy 



THIRD ACT AND LAST 



119 



of any theatre, and a finishing touch, put by the old man 
was almost a stroke of genius. Some twenty people had 
collected on the bank, and as we pushed off, he directed 
them as soon as we were sufficiently distant, to represent 
Achmet by shouting. I had learnt enough Arabic to catch 
the drift of his request, and prepared C. for what was about 
to happen. The natives acted their part with much discre- 
tion, and we were already making fast to the other shore 
when supplicating cries from the bank we had left made 
Achmet, already some miles distant, declare that he had 
only been a few minutes late. For that night the play 
was kept up ; we were asked to listen to Achinet's 
shouts, and greetings went from our reis to his substi- 
tute. But the next morning, with the frankness with 
which they always abandon and avow any lie that is 
found out, or is no longer useful, it was acknowledged 
that Achmet had gone home ; "but then, poor man, he had 
found his house clean, swept and garnished, for his wife 
and children had gone to meet him at Esne ; would 
we not therefore take him back ?/"• 

Deaf to all entreaties, we sent the reis across in the 
felucca with the man's kit and wages. Still we were 
sorry to lose him, for he was a willing and untrouble- 
some hand, and we could not but sympathise with the 
affection he showed for his family. The part played by 
the reis, it was much more difficult to forgive. It was 
his duty to see that our orders were obeyed, and he 
entered con amove into the man's attempt to evade them. 



120 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



We could not but feel that it was owing to our captain's 
weakness and want of truth that we lost Achmet. But 
for this the man might have seen his wife on the shore, 
and gone on with us or gone away, as he thought fit; 
but supported by the reis' connivance, he tried to do 
more than we could safely permit, and lost his place. 

This affair concluded, the willingness to obey and 
anxiety to please of every one on board exceeded 
description. Punishment had been inflicted, and Rama- 
dan was over. And how the men ate ! 

We wished that the animals had appetites on the same 
scale, for food was cheap and they were thin. What 
mutton, what fat turkeys we should have had ! Every 
hole and corner of the boat was filled with grain of dif- 
ferent sorts, and in different forms, stored for the suste- 
nance of our farm, our servants, the crew, or ourselves ; 
and it was our evening amusement to land the animals 
and feed them. They soon knew me as well as their care- 
taker, Abed ; and the carrying ashore and arrangement 
of my litter was the signal for a bleating, cackling, and 
gobbling, that would have done credit to any English 
farmyard. 

When the coops were opened, and legs were untied, a 
general rush at me was made ; the sheep jumped from 
the felucca, chickens and turkeys flew from the ginnaym, 
or garden ; and I had to use my stick, sometimes even 
roughly, to clear my cushions and legs from obtrusive 
sheep and too familiar poultry. 



LOCUSTS. 



121 



Poor brutes ! it is something of a drawback to da- 
habeah life that one is obliged to eat one's pets ; and the 
mixed feelings with which one regards their increasing 
size and well-to-do look, are in keeping with the general 
contrast and contradictoriness of human nature. For the 
turkeys our sympathies were less lively. They were such 
stupid brutes in life, and so excellent on the table, that 
one found it quite reasonable to take pleasure in their 
rapidly increasing bulk, solely from a gourmet's point of 
view. But the sheep were so big, and did so enjoy their 
barley and beans, that their transformation to mutton 
was long, delayed, and we went ten days without 
meat before we could order the dissolution of their 
partnership. With the chickens it was impossible to 
deal so tenderly. Man must eat to live, and he readily 
sees the necessity of supporting his own existence. A 
reprieve for the sheep required therefore a sentence on a 
chicken, but we carried with us two silver-grey pullets, 
which were particularly good-looking and tame, up to Wadi 
Halfeh, and down again to Alexandria. The occasional 
eggs that were found in the coop were always placed to 
their account, and purchased their escape from the cook. 

In this part of the Nile we fell in with large flocks of 
locusts. When first we saw them I happened to be 
looking up into the deep blue sky, and their flight caught 
my eye at a height that in England would render a 
swallow scarcely distinguishable. But so it was with 
everything in that clear atmosphere. Stems of trees, 



122 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



limbs of animals, stand out sharp and defined, at distances 
which at home would preclude the perception of more 
than a general effect. In Egypt, it was possible to see 
the legs of an animal, where in England a guess would 
be required to give name to its indistinct form. So too 
with the colouring. The greens were green, and the 
blues were blue, — true, deep, vivid, and unmistakable ; and 
the reds, the gold, the orange of the sunsets were brighter 
land more decided than the colours in the transformation, 
.scene of a Christmas pantomime. 

The locusts had,, peculiar habits. They seemed always 
moving in the same direction ; and at this part of our 
voyage, their ravages were confined to one bank of the 
river. For miles, the crops on one bank were eaten 
more or less. Perhaps at one spot, down to the very 
roots ; and yet the land where the attractive strip of crop 
had grown, seemed still alive with the all-devouring 
insects ; whilst of the patches on either side of the 
favoured plot, one would be only yellow from their 
attacks, and the other so little damaged that the mis- 
chief done was not perceptible. On the other side of 
the river not a locust could be seen, nor a trace of 
one detected. We tried in vain to account for the 
apparent capriciousness of their taste. It was not 
any particular crop that was preferred : at one place 
the plague had fallen on the barley, at another it had 
alighted on the lupins, and in a third a plantation of 
palms was covered as if by a cloud, whilst the corn 



TEMSAH. 



123 



underneath was apparently untouched. The crew told 
us that the green spots that stood out among the general 
waste had been preserved by the care of their owners, 
and occasionally we saw a whole family engaged in 
driving off the pest with palm-branches ; but more often 
the oasis lay unguarded, inviting* by its freshness an 
attack, that from no cause we could discover, the locusts 
seemed loath to commence. 

Eespecting such matters as these, — the habits of the 
animals peculiar to or best known in Egypt, the names 
of birds and fishes, of plants and trees, indigenous to the 
country, in all subjects in short connected with natural 
history and the state of things existing — we greatly re- 
gretted to have no book of reference. It is time lost to 
seek, in Murray, information on any such subject. His 
account of the antiquities is as admirable, his informa- 
tion respecting the tombs and ruins and ancient kings is 
as precise, as the little he does say of Modern Egypt is 
undecided and contradictory. He is so taken up with 
what happened 3000 years ago, so full of corrections of 
the assertions of other antiquaries, that he can find 
scant room to deal with subjects of present interest; 
and whilst the position of every grotto in the land is 
indicated, no mention is made of such impediments to 
navigation as the locks at Atfeh or the bridge at Kafr e 
Zayat. 

We were now in the land of crocodiles, and our anxious 
watch for temsah had been kept up for some days. On 



124 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



the morrow of our departure from Etfoo, I was basking 
and dreaming on deck as usual, thinking of nothing 
more particular than the pleasure of living, too occupied 
with looking, admiring, and doing nothing, to feel the 
want of newspapers, or regret the restriction from books 
imposed on my eyes by the vivid light, when I was 
quickened into life by shrieks of " Temsah." " Where, 
where ? " " Look, look I" said the reis ; and there, there, 
pointed every finger of every man on deck. And sure 
enough, close to us, so near that we could have almost hit 
him with an oar, swam and dived and swam, hemmed in 
between us and the land, perhaps ten yards distant, a 
wretched little brute about the size of an alligator in the 
Zoological Gardens. With shouts and yells we drove him 
before us, and apparently out of his senses. So de- 
moralised was he, that when in the water he tried to 
scramble on to the land, and when on the land he fell 
back into the water; and it was three or four minutes before 
he finally sank, and we saw him no more. The next day, 
as we crept along the bank with a light breeze, Zenati, 
the ship's boy, was told to swim ashore, and bring off a 
bundle of green corn for the sheep's dinner, in exchange 
for one or two piastres, to be given to the native engaged 
in pulling it for us. There is no hardship in such an 
order in Upper Egypt, and little preparation is required 
to execute it. More perhaps here than lower down, 
for the people began to clothe their extremities as 
a protection against the heat. Felt skullcaps were 



WOIRAN. 



125 



universally worn, slippers frequently, and drawers had 
become almost common. 

Zenati jumped into the river and had swum half way to 
shore, when the twin of our yesterday's crocodile was seen 
sliding off the rocks. The usual scream of "Temsah, 
temsah : hough ! hough ! hough ! was given by all the 
men, and the boy and the reptile, equally frightened, 
swam for a few yards close together, as if swimming in 
a race. We were a good deal astonished at the foolish 
ways of these so-called baby crocodiles ; but it was not 
till a few days later, when we saw one of the same species 
on land sufficiently close and quietly to be enabled to 
have a good look at him, that we found out that the 
animal palmed off on us as an infant crocodile was a full- 
grown lizard of large dimensions and great stupidity. 
This beast, named by the Arabs, ivoiran, is so exceed- 
ingly like a small crocodile, that it is not easy for a person 
who has seen neither, as Pat would say, to distinguish 
one from the other ; and the Arab sailor, availing him- 
self of their resemblance, invariably points out a woiran 
as temsah, to the traveller new to the Kile. A Nile 
boatman likes to make things pleasant ; and in this par- 
ticular they often reminded me of a Kerry fisherman I 
once had, a charming fellow, of amiable character and 
doubtful veracity, who, on my reproaching him one day 
for the exceeding incorrectness of some statement of 
his that I had incautiously acted on, answered, with 
injured innocence in every tone, "And sure didn't I 



126 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



know that your honour would like to think it was 
so!" 

We saw in Nubia a, stuffed specimen of the woiran, 
about four feet in length; offered for sale as a crocodile, 
and the two which afforded us so much excitement were 
neither of them much less in size. It is an article of 
faith, or at least of assertion, among the Arabs, that 
woirans and crocodiles are brothers. They declare 
that out of the same batch of crocodile's eggs both one 
and the other reptile is hatched. 

That nighty January 4, we stopped a little below Hagar 
Silsilis, and laughed at a fellah who warned us not to leave 
our flock in the felucca, nor to tie them for the night on 
the bank within reach of temsah. Crocodiles abound in 
this part of the Nile, but those we had seen, as we 
thought, were not of a kind to attack live sheep when 
within a few yards of a dahabeah. Our men, however, 
acted on the peasant's advice, and brought the livestock 
on board for the night. The next morning we saw that 
they had reason. Soon after starting; the reis shouted 
ff Temsah/ J and pointed to a sandbank half a mile ahead. 
We looked; and saw what appeared to us to be a ridge of 
black earth left by the subsiding inundation, two or three 
feet high; and more than twenty feet long. It seemed 
far too big to be any living thing. 

However; as the reis persisted that the mass was temsah; 
we steered across to the sandbank. When as close as we 
could get for shoal water, perhaps within 100 yards, the 



A MONSTER, 



127 



crew shouted, but nothing moved, At last the gun was 
fired; and then, to our amazement, the ridge got on its 
legs, and a crocodile big enough to have swallowed the 
sheep, the felucca, and say half the dahabeah at a gulp., 
slid into the water. He was the very picture of one to be 
seen on the binding of a book in the railway stalls, who 
is probably now standing at King's- Cross Station, openings 
without effort, his mouth sufficiently to receive in it a 
full grown royal Bengal tiger. The Habitual assisted the 
illusion by assuming the expression of the escaping hero, 
and acting fear to the life, he let off by accident the 
second barrel of the gun, to the imminent danger of the 
men surrounding him. Half a mile higher up, we saw 
another somewhat smaller monster. 

This day's sail was a charming one, a day of infinite 
variety. First we passed Hagar Silsileh, " the mountain 
of the chain/' as Murray translates the name ; adding, 
that Arab tradition records the stoppage of the navigation 
of the river at this spot by means of a chain. It would 
seem just as likely that the name was given figuratively, 
and dates from the days when the first cataract was en- 
countered at Silsilis, and the mountains of the chain had 
power to hold up the whole waters of the Nile, and throw 
them back on Ethiopia, It was, according to the highest 
authority on the subject, Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, about 
the seventeenth century, B.C., that the rocks at Silsilis 
gave way, and the channel of the Nile above became 
permanently lowered, There is no evidence to show the 



128 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



exact difference in level immediately above tlie chain 
occasioned by this catastrophe, but Sir Gr. Wilkinson 
found masses of old alluvium close to Philae that must 
have been deposited by the Nile in its inundations, 
previous to the carrying away of the dam at Silsilis. 
This flood guage stood on an average twenty-eight feet, 
and at the highest points ten feet more, above the high- 
water mark of the present greatest rise. Fertile Ethiopia 
was turned by the convulsion into a desert, and probably 
no such permanent and vast a change was ever effected 
so instantaneously on the face of the earth as that 
wrought by the bursting of nature's dam at Silsilis. 

At the present day, the scenery in this part of the river 
is full of interest. The Nile narrows at one point to 
1095 feet. The river faces of the mountain, or rather 
of the ridge that would be more correctly described as a 
low range of sandstone rocks, are studded with grottoes, 
ornamented by sculpture, enriched with hieroglyphics, 
and pocked with extensive ancient quarries. 

Immediately above the broken gate lie some large 
sandbanks_, the favourite home of crocodiles, and bad 
must be the luck of any ordinary traveller who goes by and 
finds them tenantless. Small people often see more than 
big ones; and crocodiles, according to newspaper corres- 
pondents, are among the things hidden by their suites 
from empresses and princes; but to single boats they 
almost always show themselves, and we were fortunate 
enough to see several, both in going up and coming down. 



KOM OMBOS. 



129 



The sandbanks passed, we ran into the very desert. 
Not even a fringe of green separated the margin of the 
Nile from the red sand. Then again we sailed between 
gardens rich with green corn, and shady with palms, 
showing under the glowing sun in a contrast of marvel- 
lous beauty with the background of barren rock and sand 
of burnished gold. 

A little further on, and we came upon Kom Ombos. 

The position of the ruined temple is grand in the 
extreme. It is said to have once stood in a plain of 
alluvial soil ; it is seen now perched on a high rock, that 
juts out, seemingly a kind of rocky spur, from the 
desert, and meeting the full current of a long- reach of 
the Nile, forces it to turn abruptly to the left. The ruins 
are not only massive, the characteristic common to all 
Egyptian ancient buildings, but are remarkable for their 
beauty. The fa$ade of the temple, looking up stream, 
is formed of columns with fine capitals. It stands on 
the pinnacle of the spur, almost overhangs the river, and 
is most imposing. We stopped about a mile above 
Kom Ombos, and as in the clear light night, we gazed 
dreamily at the temple, and thought how grand was the 
effect produced by its solid architecture and sharp out- 
lines against the deep blue sky, it required no great 
effort of the imagination to forget the waste of time, to 
efface the marks of ages at that hour scarcely visible, to 
restore the ruins, and to repeople the scene so unusual 
to our Western eye with the ancient kings, priests, and 

K 



130 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



slaves, it had lately dwelt upon in the sculptures at 
Silsilis. 

Another morning's sail brought us to Assouan. It 
was the second day of a strong norther; and even at 
this distance from the sea, 750 river miles, its breath 
told a winter tale of frost and snow. It carried with it, 
too, if not a mist, — that in Upper Egypt would be im- 
possible,— a dulness, a want of clearness of atmosphere, 
such as in a greater degree an east wind spreads in 
England, blurring the landscape, and causing one to see 
all things as through a veil, dimly. 

The approach to Assouan is particularly picturesque. 
For some miles previously, a consciousness of a change in 
scenery and colouring had been creeping over us. The 
sand was becoming warmer in its tone ; and the rocks, 
dark and calcined-looking, were the rocks of Nubia, not 
of Egypt. Each hundred miles of southern progress 
makes itself felt, but about Assouan there is a still more 
marked alteration, and one seems to have stepped at once 
from a temperate into a tropical country. The fiercer 
and straighter rays of the sun leave a deeper impress on 
everything they touch. 

Sakias, too, the Nubian waterwheels, made their first 
appearance on the scene, announcing a change of country 
and of customs. We were in the land of irrigation. As 
flint and steel, when brought in contact, set tinder all 
afire, the sun and Nile, when made to act together, give 
all-producing power to Egypt. Wherever the river flows, 



SHADOOFS AND SAKIAS. 



and wherever its water permeates, there is verdure and 
fertility, food and life. Beyond the influence of the 
quickening element is sterile sand and barren waste. 

Away from the Nile bank the Egyptians convey the 
enriching water by various means. There are canals, 
such as the Bahr Yoosef, very rivers from their source, 
that spread their arms like the branches of some giant 
tree, till their strength is spent, and the last drop they 
carry is licked up by the thirsty soil. Their course is 
marked through the land by villages and towns, by flocks 
and herds, by corn and dates, and by cotton and sugar 
plantations. 

A more primitive instrument of irrigation — perhaps 
one of the oldest of mechanical contrivances — is the pole 
and bucket of the shadoof. In Egypt it is universally 
used, and in construction is most simple. An upright, 
say eight or nine feet high, is fixed in the bank. On it 
a long pole is balanced. At the short and inshore end is 
a lump of clay, equal in weight to the bucket when full of 
water, that hangs on the longer and river arm. The 
peasant standing in front, depresses the bucket till it fills, 
then by the aid of the earthen weight, he lifts it to the 
level of his chest, and by the same action empties it into 
a trough, that carries the water backward to the land, or 
to another and another shadoof that will raise it to the 
necessary level. The shadoofs are often worked in pairs, 
and we saw once as many as six pairs ranged in tiers on 
landings one above the other. Each man made an 

k 2 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



average of eight lifts a minute. How many myriads of 
gallons must be thus drawn annually from the Nile ? 

The sakia, a more lazy method for obtaining the same 
end, is Nubian. A wheel, enclosed in a tower, is placed 
on the summit of the bank. A palm-fibre band encircles 
it, and lowers and raises, as the wheel revolves, a number 
of earthen pots into a conduit beneath, that leads the 
water to it from the Nile. The whole is like a rough 
dredging machine, working perpendicularly, and raising 
water instead of mud. Ensconced in the shade of the 
tower, the idle owner sits and flogs his working beast — 
cow, ass, or camel. 

For two or three miles below the town the banks are ,r 
unusually fertile, but Assouan itself is set in a frame of 
more than ordinary barrenness and desolation. Imme- 
diately before it lies the island of Elephantine, a mosaic 
of vivid green, golden sand, and black syenite ; but on 
the left bank opposite rises a high hill or mountain of 
sand, and on the right the town is shut in by confused 
heaps or small hills of syenite and granite, tossed about 
in all directions, as if marking some fearful convulsion of 
primeval nature. The toe of the island comes down below 
the town, and as the traveller's boat runs up, he sees 
before him the main but not navigable arm of the Nile, 
here running deep, there foaming among hidden rocks or 
huge uprising black boulders. When almost level with 
the island's foot, the boat is steered to the left, and enters 
the deep but comparatively narrow channel on which 



FIRST CATARACT. 



133 



Assouan stands. But even this is so cabined^ cribbed, 
and confined by rocks,, that the view does not extend 
20G yards upwards from the mooring ground of daha- 
beahs, and as his boat is made fast, it requires neither 
guide-book nor dragoman to announce that the cataract 
of the Nile is reached. 



CHAPTEE XII. 



ASSOUAN TO PHIL^. 

We had no wist, to remain at Assouan. Indeed, there 
is little to tempt a sojourn there., except that it is 
within four or five miles of the far-famed Philas. 
An advantage that is without attraction to those who 
pass the cataract ; for Assouan is at the foot, and Philae at 
the head, of the rapids. The greater part of the up- 
country produce is disembarked at a busy village oppo- 
site to the island of Philse, and transported by men, 
donkeys, and camels, to Assouan, where it is again 
embarked. The first visit to Philge is generally made by 
a donkey-ride across this portage. An ascent of the 
cataract is impossible without the aid of the sheiks of the 
Shellal, as the cataract is termed, and these men have 
learnt from Europeans the value of time. Their mode of 
estimating it is, it is true, the reverse of ours, for whereas 
we pay for speed, they charge for delay. The longer the 
time spent in making the passage, and in arranging for 
the attempt, the greater is the appearance of difficulty ; 
and difficulty adds to their importance, thus increasing 
the price to be exacted for their services. Besides, the 
more days that a dahabeah is detained at Assouan, the 
greater are the opportunities offered for discussion ; and 
discussion is another word for the consumption of coffee 



BARGAINING. 



and tobacco. It thus generally happens that two, three, 
and even four days are wasted in making the preliminary 
preparations; and two days are almost invariably con- 
sumed in the ascent itself, which should be an affair of 
five or six hours. But we were in luck. A dahabeah 
had preceded us ; the chiefs had appointed the very day 
after our arrival for the conclusion of their bargain with 
its tenants., and as it suited their convenience to take 
up the two boats on the same day, they came from it to 
us. Our morning of the 7th of January was therefore 
spent in doing u bazaar " with the sheiks of the Shellal. 

The scene was novel, curious, and most disagreeable. 
Human nature in a very low form, dirty and repulsive, 
swaggering and tawdry, bragging, lying, and cheating, 
can never be pleasant to look on; but it becomes 
thoroughly odious when one is brought into personal con- 
tact with it. As soon as we received the sheiks, three or 
four in number, our boat was invaded by a dozen smaller 
men with an army at their back, all smoking, spitting, 
talking, lying, gesticulating, and watching for an oppor- 
tunity to rob. Our servants and crew, aware of their 
habits, had placed everything thievable out of reach, and 
three or four were told off to keep watch and ward over 
the rest of our goods. Hard put to it not entirely to 
lose the occasion, one man betook himself to stealing the 
chickens' corn. I saw him doing so, and he saw that I 
saw him; so when I sent the faithful Abed, who was 
chicken-tending, to remove him, the stolen pile was 



-5- 



THE XILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



suffered to slip from Lis cotton gown, and fall behind 
Lira. Tiiis little experience should have warned me tc 
be careful in- my dealings with Lis chiefs ; but though 
I was equal to the valet, the head knave was too much 
for me. 

It was settled with our reis, after much palavering, 
coifee, and tobacco, that 205 francs should be paid to the 
sheiks. But the amount was to be handed over in various 
sums of guineas {i.e. Napoleons), taralis, francs, and pias- 
tres. After making up the several little piles, and counting 
them over and over a dozen times with the reis, he 
brought in the head sheik to receive them. TVith him 
the reis again went over the count, but the tale was not 
right or could not be understood, and I was asked 
to explain it. Foolishly, I consented to go over 
account once more, and on this occasion with the sheik, 
through whose hands the money had already passed 
several times. Of course a Xapoleon was missing, and 
feeling that remonstrance could not but be absolutely 
useless, I paid it without a word. 

The next morning the fair wind indispensable for the 
ascent came up the river at breakfast-time, and by ten 
we had cast loose our sails. If yesterday we were invaded. 

a/ wf J 

to-day we were taken possession of. A crowd of Arabs of 
more or less authority, with more or less clothes, but each 
with a tongue and an equal power of using it, clustered on 
our decks. The sheiks were accompanied by their Nubian 
boys, whose duty it was each to hold his master's pipe, to 



COMMENCING THE ASCENT. 



1.37 



fold the robes of state lie laid aside when lie commenced 
work, and generally to enhance the dignity of his appear- 
ance. The young fellows whose work, as we afterwards 
saw/ called them to pass an hour or two in the rapids, 
watching the ropes, guiding them between and over the 
boulders and crags, slipped out of their clothes, and hung 
on to the stays on either side ready for a plunge. Three 
boys, of about fourteen or sixteen, manned the felucca, 
and rowed in front, carrying a warp in case of need, and 
thirty or forty men, part of the teams that were to draw 
us up the rapids, cumbered the decks, making the old 
boat sway from side to side with her unusual freight, and 
scarcely leaving us room to sit. Many and great indeed 
were the remonstrances made at our remaining on board. 
It was not usual, it was not safe, it was most dangerous ; 
but our English obstinacy prevailed, and we had our own 
deck cleared of all but the sheiks in command, their 
boys, and the one or two men whose services were 
required. 

The English dahabeah, to whom we were indebted for 
our non- detention, preceded us ; and as she went by, the 
sight of her deck, far more crowded than our own, re- 
conciled us to our own numerous company. In a minute 
or two we followed, and passed between the walls of rock 
that had hitherto concealed from us the approach to El 
Shellal. This passage is far more curious than beautiful. 
Misled by the term cataract, we expected to look on a 
very different scene. What we did see was a big river 



133 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



split into half a dozen different streams by rocks of various 
sizes, and by small islands of black syenite, granite, and 
sand. Bound and between these islands the river ran in 
tolerably quiet and occasional very heavy rushes of water, 
but perpendicular fall there was none at all until the head 
of the rapid, four or five miles distant, was reached, and 
we floated beneath El Bab, or "the gate." Murray puts 
the height of the fall here at five to six feet ; but for his 
authority I should have placed it at not more than from 
three to four at the utmost. But it is difficult to esti- 
mate the height of a fall which to the eye scarcely exists 
as a fall at all. Tor the rush of water though El Bab is 
so great that its proper weight forces the wave out of the 
perpendicular, and the water behind, driving before it 
that in front, levels the fall into a shoot. The enormous 
pressure and power of the current is shown distinctly on 
the rocks. On the shore, and in the river course wherever 
they stand above the level of the ordinary inundations, 
they closely resemble lumps or masses of slag fresh from 
a foundry and seen through a magnifying glass : jagged, 
sharp, uneven in edge, and deeply corroded in surface. 
But where they are commonly reached by the water 
of the high Nile, they are rounded, smoothed, and 
polished, till in shape they are like the skulls of Mam- 
moths, and in colour a Bond Street boot. 

Our course was very circuitous, twisting and turning 
among the rocks and islands. Now we breasted a stream, 
now we cut across one in what, at first, appeared a very 



A SPINNING BOA T. 



139 



haphazard manner, but we soon saw with really no little 
skill. The work was ticklish, for though w,e had a good 
steady little breeze, it was very insufficient to force us up 
various steps or stages where the generally heavy stream 
obtained the dimensions of a rapid. As the last of the 
six or seven we passed of these was reached, the warp 
attached to the rocks ahead by our felucca's crew was 
brought on board, and the towrope got out and manned. 

At times I could not help unpleasantly speculating on 
the possibility of the ropes breaking or being chafed and 
cut by the knifelike rocks over which they were constantly 
passed. The consequences of such a mischance might be 
very serious; and it was some relief to see two of the 
urchin boys squatting on the deck beside us, for articles 
so precious as the slippers, sacks of robes, and large 
amber mouthpieces they carried, would assuredly not be 
left in danger. 

Whilst such thoughts as these were passing through 
my head, my attention was attracted to the boat 
preceding us. It was about 200 to 300 yards ahead 
and had been gracefully, after the fashion of a daha- 
beah, bending its long lateen sails to the breeze, as 
it slowly forced its way head to current, when suddenly 
it began to perform some most extraordinary evolutions. 
Under some powerful influence it spun round, and I saw 
its sails taken aback, and almost instantly righted by the 
complete description of a circle ; then again taken aback, 
I thought it was coming headlong down upon us; 



140 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



when, equally without apparent cause, tlie sail was again 
righted, and the boat brought up with her side to the 
bank, and her head upstream. We had barely time to 
remark how satisfactory it was to see that a boat could 
spin like a top, and sustain no damage, when our men, 
working with greater skill, brought us up alongside her, 
and then together we passed in safety the scene of her 
eccentric motions. 

It was 2 o'clock. "We were at the foot of El Bab, and 
the Arabs refused to let us through until the morrow. 
They had no sooner gone, than the Englishmen travelling 
in the other dahabeah came on board. They told us that 
the .gyrations we had witnessed had been caused by the 
slipping of their warp at a critical moment, and had been 
attended by considerable danger. Their boat was at the 
instant at a spot where two heavy streams, rushing from 
different sides of some rock islands, met. These con- 
verging currents struck the dahabeah, first on the bow, 
then on the stern; and the bight of the warp slipping 
from a rock, she was rendered perfectly unmanageable. 
Their men manning the tow-rope had, to save themselves 
being pulled into the water, let go; and those on board, 
powerless to help themselves, had become as white as an 
Arab can be with fear. It certainly was extraordinary 
that a boat of the size of a dahabeah could be whirled 
round in the manner I have described, in a channel not 
more than sixty yards wide, and be kicked, as it were, 
out of it into slack water, without touching any 



DESOLATE SCEXE. 



141 



of the numerous rocks, or sustaining the slightest 
injury. 

The scene that afternoon was most strange. The two 
boats had no sooner been made fast than the Nubians 
dispersed and disappeared. Each man went on his own 
way. In that waste, paths were not ; and their tracks, 
no sooner made than to be effaced by the drifting sand, 
crossed each other in all directions. The silence that 
ensued was in almost startling contrast with the con- 
tinuous noise that we had endured from their shrill 
voices for so many hours. The roar of the numerous 
falls and rapids surrounding us, so soothing in itself, 
acted after the excitement of the day like an insufficient 
opiate ; and it was some hours before our nerves calmed 
down. The spot we occupied was desolate and weird in 
the evening light beyond description. No trace of any 
green thing was in sight ; all around was a chaotic mass 
of sand and rock ; this tortured into forms outlandish or 
fantastic; that, lying in waves or cones or mounds, as 
the fancy of the wind, tired of its plaything, had thrown 
it down and left it. Our men, tired or stilled by the 
influence of the place, were for once quiet and silent. 
Not a bird or insect seemed to live in that utter desola- 
tion ; and the hoarse voice of El Bab seemed a mournful 
accompaniment rather than a break to the lifeless silence. 

About ten the next morning the sheiks and their fol- 
lowers came to our side, and some further preparations 
were made for the ascent. Yesterday they had contented 



142 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 

themselves with seeing that the ballast we had taken in at 
Gebel Tookh was thrown overboard, and floating power 
thus acquired for the horde of savages who made holiday 
and accompanied us. But to day it was evident that the 
people who knew a the gate" held it in greater respect 
than we were inclined to do. Much less noise was made ; 
the orders given were practical and obeyed. The for- 
ward part of the dahabeah was lightened. The quantity 
of provisions and lumber, which I had often unsuccess- 
fully endeavoured to get removed from the deck abpve 
our cabins, was stowed away below. The spare sails, 
cordage, anchor, spars, the men^s bread, our sheep and 
poultry, were carried across land to a point above the fall. 
We were repeatedly requested to follow them; and the 
example set in this respect by the travellers in the other 
dahabeah was pointed out as customary and proper; but 
I feared the walk far more than the fall, and resumed 
with C. our yesterday's post in the centre of the upper 
deck. Our companions started first. There is a slight 
rapid immediately below El Bab, which we respectively 
passed ; and as we reached the head of it, we saw the 
other boat hauled up and into the more formidable fall. 
By a slight mismanagement of the ropes her stern sud- 
denly flew out across the stream ; and she made one or 
two heavy rolls, shipping a good drop of water before 
she was again brought back to the side. The sight of 
this pointed out by our reis was too much for C/s ebb- 
ing courage. Struck with a sudden panic, she answered 



EL BAB, 



143 



the reiterated request that we would go ashore with 
eager acquiescence ; and I was placed in my litter on a 
rock close by, from whence, perhaps, we saw the pro- 
ceedings none the worse, and certainly with more 
safety. 

El Bab is, as I have said, a heavy surge of water rather 
than a positive fall. Fall of course there is, and possibly 
in low water to the extent of the five or six feet given it ; 
but when, as it was now, the Nile is high, the rush of 
water is so great, that the fall is planed down into an 
incline. The fall is the greatest on the west side, and 
gradually lessens across the channel until it becomes 
least close to the east bank. This, of course, is the point 
chosen for passing the boats up ; and they are held as 
close as possible to the bank by ropes attached to the bow 
and stern quarters. By these guide ropes she is held in, 
and directed by two others at the bow ; the sheer force, 
or rather weight, of fifty Arabs haul her upwards ; and 
her sides are protected from injury against the rocky 
bank by a line of men from stem to stern, who, with 
hands, shoulders, and feet pressed against her, act as 
living buffers, holding her off and helping her upward 
progress. If all goes right she never leaves the shore. 
In the case of our fellow dahabeah, the stern quarter rope 
had been clumsily slackened, and a wave of water eddy- 
ing off a rock had caught and slewed her partly across 
the channel ; but the rope was immediately hauled upon, 
the boat was brought back side to shore, and no mishap 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



occurred. In a minute or two more she was forced up 
tlie fall. 

El Bab was passed with, screams of triumph, and our 
turn arrived. Everything went so well with our lighter 
boat, that the ascent seemed the simple work we had 
yesterday anticipated it would be; and our satisfaction 
at seeing our dahabeah safe above El Shellal was a little 
mixed with mortification that we had not remained on 
board. There she went easily and safely by us, black 
with screaming Arabs; we, surrounded by a hundred 
more, each shrieking backshish, had laboriously and not 
without risk to scramble for 100 yards over rough and 
treacherously polished rocks. Here in a backwater lay 
the felucca ; and getting into her, the boy crew rowed 
us by a roundabout channel up into the main river, 
where we found the Lotus awaiting us. 

It is difficult to estimate the amount of risk to be en- 
countered in going up the cataract of Assouan from the 
experience of a single passage. One is told by some that 
the Arabs are unskilful and without organization; and 
that the ascent, really difficult and dangerous, is made 
light of by the sheiks, so that the weaker-spirited may 
not be deterred from attempting it. Others declare that 
danger does not exist, and that the difficulties are exag- 
gerated by the same sheiks in order that they may 
increase their demands. To me it appeared that if the 
ascent be properly managed, there is no danger, and but 
little difficulty; but that any neglect of the necessary pre- 



NUBIAN DISCIPLINE. 



cautions would make the ascent most dangerous, if not 
impossible. Such neglect is not, however, likely to 
occur. Murray tells us that the sheiks are responsible 
for the safety of the boats they take charge of. This 
may be so, but many are lost on the down passage ; and 
I was unable to hear of any occasion when a penalty had 
been enforced against them. They have, however, every 
inducement to do their best in the profit they make by 
the venture, for too many losses would infallibly prevent 
ascents ; and it seemed to me, on close observance, that 
they not only did their best, but that they did it well. 
We are so apt to associate silence with discipline, that 
we think noise necessarily implies confusion, and that 
the screams of a subordinate show disregard to the orders 
of his chief; but I thought that, through all the rush, 
row, and riot made by the mob in and out of the boat, 
order and method really prevailed. Three or four differ- 
ent sets of men were told off to separate and distinct 
duties, the same men evidently performing the same 
task on every occasion ; and over each of these gangs 
presided a sheik. All were set in motion and kept in 
hand by the head sheik ; and though everybody gave his 
advice and his commands, those only of the chief in the 
first instance, and of the subordinate sheiks in the second, 
were attended so. Their orders were well and instantly 
obeyed. 

The particular service in which skill is perhaps most of 
all essential, was performed in a manner worthy of all 

L 



146 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



praise. The safety of the ascending boat depends on the 
proper management of the warps and tow-ropes. It is 
often necessary to send the tow-rope forward, or from 
one bank to the other, where it is manned as occasion re- 
quires. The current is, however, so strong in places, 
that it would overpower the men but for the aid of the 
warps, and it requires some judgment and practice to 
make these fast, and to cast them off at the respectively 
fitting moments, and no little dexterity and strength to 
disentangle and free them when they are caught in the 
rocks above or below water. These duties are entrusted 
to the boys in the felucca, and to three or four active 
young fellows with big chests and lithe limbs, who remain 
with the dahabeah ; and they are most admirably executed. 
The small boat was managed with astonishing dexterity. 
She crossed with a rush the current where it was strongest, 
took advantage of the eddy caused by any friendly boulder, 
and was forced through the stream where it could not be 
avoided. So quick were its movements, so ready its turns, 
and constant its progress, that it seemed instinct with life, 
and resembled a fish or an otter at play on the surface of 
the river. Equally wonderful were the feats of the older 
lads, though we saw less of them, for they spent as much 
time under the water as in it. When it was necessary for 
one of them to get to a rock, cropping out perhaps of the 
centre of the rapid, they avoided the strength of the stream 
by a dive. So at least it appeared, for diving under the 
current's rush, they traversed it so quickly, that one 



AQUATIC FEATS. 



147 



could only imagine it avoided. Their obedience too was 
as prompt as their skill was great. No dog on river bank 
ever left his master's hand quicker at the word of com- 
mand^ than I saw one of these young fellows dash into 
the water at the order of his sheik, to unfasten a guide 
rope, that, drawn by the current into the rocks, had got 
caught at the bottom. With a plunge he went from our 
deck into the hissing stream, right into the very foam of 
it; in a moment more he had reached the spot, dived like 
a duck, and we were free. 

These same boys will, for a piastre or two, pass down 
El Bab as often as desired. Seating themselves astride 
of a log of wood about six feet long, and sufficiently buoy- 
ant to support them waist high out of water, they ride it 
with the seat and gestures of a Newmarket jockey, and 
with hands and feet keep it straight with the line of the 
current. The fall is shot with an ease and grace that 
does away with the sense of danger one would otherwise 
feel at seeing a man hurried along amid such a boil and 
turmoil of waters; but arrived at the bottom, they have a 
hard struggle to induce their horse to turn out of the 
Course. To do this they avail themselves of the impetus 
acquired by the log in its shoot, and throwing themselves 
full length upon it, they seem, with a sudden stroke from 
the left leg and arm, to drive it and themselves out of the 
current. To fail in this would be dangerous, even to 
Arab swimmers. Immediately below, lie ugly rocks, on 
which the heavy stream breaks with fearful violence, and 



143 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



it was amongst these that an Englishman who, some 
years since, attempted the descent in the native fashion, 
is said to have lost his life. 

On our return to the dahabeah, we found her still 
thronged with Arabs. As the readiest way of getting 
rid of them, an immediate start was ordered, and we went 
into our cabin. As soon as we were under weigh, all 
noise ceased, and I opened the cabin door, expecting to 
find the boat clear. To our disappointment, the lower 
deck was still black with natives, and the upper one con- 
tained all the sheiks of the Shellal, with their attendants. 
It was best to accept the situation ; so I laid down as if 
perfectly content with things as I found them. The 
Arabs seeing this, became impatient, and at the sheik's 
request, the dahabeah was brought up to the bank. The 
rank and file then disembarked, while the sheiks took a 
formal and reluctant farewell. Not a sign would I give 
of understanding their silent demand for more — the mute 
appeal for backshish that was expressed in every action of 
each and all. At last the boat was clear. The whole 
throng ascended the bank and went a few steps away; 
then they stopped, and in an instant, without word that 
I could hear spoken, or signal that I could see given, 
sheiks and men returned with a common rush and a 
general scream. Every arm was thrown up to heaven, 
and "backshish, backshish/' W as yelled by every mouth. 
Never did the chorus in the Huguenots when the poi- 
gnards have been blessed, return to the footlights with 



" TEX LITTLE NIGGERS. ^ 



149 



more theatrical rush, of feet and swell of voice. The 
coup took rne by surprise, but missed the effect it 
was intended to produce. To have given would have 
been to expose ourselves to incessant extortion; and 
when our reis preferred the request of the. Nubians, I told 
him to give what he pleased for himself, but not a piastre 
for me. Accepting the inevitable, the sheiks turned and 
walked off, each to his own home. A general dispersion 
quickly followed, and we were left in peace. 

But the breeze had fallen, the sky showed signs of a 
heavy southern storm, and our position in such a contin- 
gency at the head of the cataract, and without any shelter 
from the wind, would have been disagreeable if not hazar- 
dous. So we got out the tow-rope and proceeded to track. 
Our course lay up a small branch of the Nile, about as big 
as the Thames at Walton. There soon came down upon 
us a swarm of Nubian imps of ages varying from six to 
nine. These urchins went through every action made by 
their elders at the cataract. Stripping off their scanty 
clothes with extreme gravity and immense pretension, 
they wound them turban fashion round their heads, and 
swam backward and forward thus laden through the river. 
• When the dahabeah came to the bank they eased her off 
with their tiny backs placed against her side. The tow- 
rope they lifted over the stones, clearing imaginary en- 
tanglements. At one place the uneven ground hid our 
crew from sight, and nothing could be more ludicrous 
than the effect produced by ten little potbellied niggers 



THE KILE WITHOUT A DR AGO MAX. 



ranged in a black line along it. The biggest boy actino- 

O O O O 1/ O 

as head sheik, beat time and his fellows ; who, apparently 
the only crew, sang a better chorus than their fathers, and 
hauled on the rope with as great pretence and as little 
real effort. A slight favourable breeze springing up, the 
tow-rope was brought on board, and our imps during the 
process, gave us their version of the poignard scene. 
Their appeal for backshish was answered by the gift of 
twenty paras apiece, and it was too much for their heads, 
Thev actuallv forgot to ask for more, and still carrvins: 
their clothes on the tops of their shaven little pates, they 
danced out of sight with yells of delight. 

In a few minutes we came in sight of Philse. The 
approach to the island is very striking. Colossal masses 
of rock, shaped and fashioned as if by man, rise up 
in every form and in all directions. On every side nature 
has piled up walls and columns that well might be the 
ancient ruins of some Titanic temples upheaved in old 
gigantic strife. Amongst such a chaos, the river winds 
so greatly, that as one opens a fresh reach, it is not easy 
to guess on which side lies the exit from it. After one 
or t ^o abrupt and hidden turns, Philse itself comes into 
view. The first feeling the sight produced in us, was one of 
disappointment. The surrounding masses of rock are so 
cut, and so many have the appearance of hewn or partially 
fashioned stones, that the size of the real ruins is some- 
what lost. Then, too, time does not in Egypt lend to 
stone the softness of hue and depth of colour so 



CONSERVATIVE CLIMATE. 



soon acquired by all buildings in our variable atmo- 
sphere. 

So conservative is the climate of Nubia, that the lines 
and edges of the blocks still standing, are as sharp as 
if they had but yesterday left the mason's hand, and on 
those that are thrown down, every mark of his chisel is 
distinct in its incision. Wonderful as this is, and 
interesting, as giving a better record of ages so remote, 
it destroys the beauty of ruined architecture. Then 
perhaps, we expected too much. The damage done by 
faint praise, is as nothing to the completeness of injury 
inflicted by over praise. How often has one enjoyed by 
anticipation all the pleasure to be derived from person or 
thing, and with the unreason of human justice resented 
by unfair depreciation the exaggerated estimate of their 
merits previously entertained. 

" Here we go up 3 up, up ; and here we go down, down, 
down/' is a rule of universal application, expressing the 
average, the balance, which prevails in human affairs, 
whether of general or private interest. A law, by 
virtue of which the most sanguine man is also the most 
despondent ; and public opinion with proverbial fickle- 
ness, hastens to drag in the mire the idol it has once 
unduly exalted. 

We had read of Philae as the most charming spot on 
the Nile, and that it must ever be associated with all that 
is full of beauty and repose. To rank it so highly seemed 
to us possible only to a man archaeological to the tips of 



152 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



his fingers. We who preferred nature in existence to 
Egyptian buildings in ruin placed above it in order of 
beauty, half a dozen other places ; and as to repose, 
there was none there for us. During the three days 
we remained, a northern gale raged with uninterrupted 
violence, filling the air with, storms of dust, that dulled 
the light, eclipsed the sun, and destroyed our tempers. 
Unused to discomforts from weather, we became fairly 
abusive. Was it worth while to come 800 miles south of 
Alexandria to make sandpaper of our lungs, and hear our 
eyelids grate as we shut them ? 

The desert dust is shamelessly obtrusive. It covers 
one's clothes, fills the pockets, powders the hair, and gets 
between the shirt and the skin. It inserts itself between 
the leaves of unopened books, and steals into the works 
of one's watch; and at the end of a desert storm, it may 
be almost literally said that no part of one, inside or 
out, is free from it. 

Ibrahim soothed us with assurances that never in all 
his experience, had he seen such weather on this side 
the cataract. He spoke the truth, for he had never 
been there before ; and it certainly was exceptional, for 
we saw clouds, when the dust permitted anything to be 
seen, that seemed to threaten rain some time perhaps in 
the next year, and we actually heard a clap of thunder. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



PHIL^ TO KOEOSCO. 

These were assembled at Phila3 three other dahabeahs, 
and our time there, owing to the dust-storm, was passed 
more with their owners than among the ruins. We con- 
soled ourselves in the observance of our general rule, to 
keep the sights and lions till our return, by the unusual 
pleasure of a good talk and some old newspapers, 
Watches were compared, and guesses made at the right 
time after the manner in vogue on the Nile. Great of 
course was the divergence if measured by minutes, and 
an amateur * scientific gentleman undertook to put us 
right by a lunar observation. As he proved, however, 
that the sun set at 6.45 p.m., we refused, in the presump- 
tion of our ignorance, to credit his calculations, and fell 
back each on his own dust bedraggled watch. 

Colonel C, of the Gazelle, called my attention to a num- 
ber of watercourses to be seen on the east bank for many 
miles above Philse. On his return from the second cat- 
aract, he had landed to examine them. Many smaller 
watercourses lead into them ; and from their general ap- 
pearance, and notably from the absence of sand in their 
bottoms, he concluded that heavy rain, probably brought 
by the monsoons from the Indian Ocean, fell annually, or 
nearly so, on this the eastern bank. On the western bank, 



154 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



he saw no such torrent traces. As Murray states that no 
rain falls in this part of Nubia, and our men said the 
same, we kept on our ascent a careful look out for any 
signs of it that we might detect. The watercourses 
mentioned by Colonel 0. were easy to be seen. Their 
bed could be traced from where they seemed to have 
forced their way through the clefts in the hills that line 
the east bank of the Nile, and their course was deeply 
marked almost down to the river. At the point of their 
embouchure into the Nile, was a delta composed of sand, 
soil, stones, and immense blocks of granite washed down 
from the mountain side. There could be no doubt that 
these fan-shaped tongues that projected into the river at 
almost right angles with the bank, were the work of 
torrents, and of very heavy ones, caused by sudden and 
tropical rains. Washed clean, too, as they were by the 
subsiding inundations, they had all the appearance of 
being' the work of a storm of yesterday; but I did not 
observe a single case in which the bank proper of the 
Nile was not intact, and did not separate the commence- 
ment of the Delta from the torrent's course inland. In 
the face of the bank lay the same granite boulders that 
could be seen on either side of it, but partially covered 
and concealed by many feet of alluvial deposit. It would 
be interesting to know whether this deposit is the work 
of tens or hundreds or of thousands of years. To me it 
seemed the latter, for the torrent beds were so deep, and 
the boulders in them so vast in size, that their appearance 



A NEW COUNTRY. 



could only be caused by rains of the heaviest character, 
and such a fall could scarcely be denied by Murray or 
unknown to our crew. This probably is only one of the 
many instances in which time in Egypt seems to have 
slept for tens of centuries. 

On the morning of the 12th January we left Philse in 
company of the dahabeah which had made the ascent of 
the cataract with us. The wind for that and the next 
two days remained so light that we had only reached 
Gertassee, twenty miles from Philae, on the evening of the 
14th ; but the time was most agreeably passed. Coming 
into Nubia we had entered upon a fresh scene. The peo- 
ple, the country, and even the climate were new to us. 
This last was hotter and softer than that we had left ; 
perfectly enjoyable, but not so stimulating; coffee and 
tobacco seemed the natural pastime of the hour, and it 
became somewhat an exertion to eat one's dinner. 

The country's aspect was much changed by the substi- 
tution of granite and syenite for lime and sandstone. A 
change which begins, as already mentioned, just below 
Assouan, but is not seen in bulk until Philse is reached, 
and the strip of land between it and Assouan, the terri- 
tory of the cataract, which is neither Nubia nor Egypt 
is passed. Another new feature, of greater importance 
to the beauty of the landscape, was, that the banks of the 
river had become less high and more sloping. In Egypt 
one sees, as a rule, the bank and the mountains behind, 
— the immediate fore and the distant background. In 



156 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



Nubia^ tlie view embraces also the middle distance. The 
river, too, was straighter in its course, inclining to the 
right or left in gentle curves and slight inflections, rather 
than with the rectangular bends that in Egypt rarely per- 
mit more than a mile or two of the Nile to be seen at 
once, and often made us think that we were sailing in a 
saucer, from which there was no outlet. I have never 
seen a more lovely river reach than the one we were now 
upon. It cannot be less than fourteen or fifteen miles in 
length. In all that distance it is never straight but 
neither does it ever bend so much as to break the line of 
sight and shut out the continuous silver thread of the river's 
light. On either side was a sloping bank of vivid green, 
running in a wavy line, and broken here and there by 
masses of boulder stones — dark granite and black syenite. 
Between them flowed, in graceful curves, the grand Nile, 
from two-thirds to one-third of a mile in width, stretch- 
ing out as far as the eye could reach, and giving that 
idea of something beyond the range of sight, of that 
infinity, which, if it be full of perplexity to the human 
mind, is also replete with hope. Here and there were 
dotted about the villages of mud, shaded each by its 
grove of palms, and high sakias clad in green stood well 
above the bank. Higher still, the ruined temple of 
Gertassee reared its ancient columns against the sky, and 
granite mountains set the whole landscape in a frame as 
purple as the most purple of Scotch hills. 

In the people the change is no less great : in race, in 



NUBIAN WOMEN. 



157 



manner, colour, hair, voice, and language they are distinct. 
The dress, too, was different, always in shape, often in 
material. 

The women were remarkably handsome in figure. 
Their beautifully rounded arms and magnificent busts were 
set off by the fashion of their clothes. One arm and 
shoulder was free and uncovered ; the folds, or long sheet 
of cotton, which composed the dress, were caught from 
front and back on the other shoulder, and fastened by a 
silver ornament ; the centre part was wrapped loosely round 
the body, and the ends were used at will, now as veils, 
now thrown round the neck, or suffered to hang down as 
they fell. But their features were less pleasing than those 
of the Egyptian women. They tattoo their faces, plaster 
their hair with a mass of castor- oil and mud, and their 
whole persons reek so much of this product of the 
country, that even the silver rings and bracelets they 
offer for sale are unbearable until they have been again 
and again washed and rewashed. Their passion for orna- 
ments is great. Silver rings and bracelets of native 
workmanship, and exceedingly pretty in design, cover 
their rounded wrists and taper fingers, and call shame on 
the hideous Birmingham brass and beads that outrage 
their necks, ears and noses. But the bad taste of the 
present century is, I fear, more precious in their eyes 
than the good shapes of old, handed down to them by 
constant repetition from the days of Rebecca, or long, 
perhaps, before she wore gauds. The silver was readily 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



taken off and offered for sale ; the brass was a decoration 
not to be parted with.. 

The children have little in common with their parents, 
except dirt. Pot-bellied, shrivelled limbed, eyelashed by 
flies, they sit astride of their mother's hips or shoulders, 
and excite pity, mingled with astonishment that such 
distorted little objects should ever grow into finely made 
men and women. 

But it must not be supposed that all the Nubians are 
as well-made and grown as these I have been describing. 
We passed in about this part of the river several tribes, 
differing from each other as widely as they varied from the 
Egyptian Arabs. On one day, when the distance made by 
our boat was not more than six or eight miles, we saw three 
sets of people, whose races seemed absolutely distinct. Of 
the first, the men and women were equally well-made, a 
concurrence as unusual as it is happy. Many a race is 
distinguished by the beauty of its women, as by the size 
and power of its men; but it more rarely happens that 
the same tribe can boast excellence in both sexes. The 
second were small, illgrown, and showed on limbs and 
skin taint of blood and traces of hereditary disease. The 
third were a race of Arabs, with shape and features 
approaching the classical Egyptian, and utterly dis- 
tinct from the Nubian tribe. How is it that such 
small colonies of different people, living side by side, 
locally close together and separated by their habits from 
all intercourse with the outer world, should thus for ages 



A RIVER GORGE. 



159 



preserve their distinctive marks, never intermarrying or 
interbreeding ? How is it, too, that though so few in 
number, they can breed in and in for centuries, and yet, 
as in the first instance I have given, retain so much per- 
fection of physique ? 

On fche 16th the north wind reached us again, and by 
the 17th it had cooled the atmosphere almost below the 
degree of lazy comfort. We made in the two days 
a distance of sixty-four miles, and traversed some very 
beautiful scenery. 

Running out of the long reach I have tried to describe, 
we entered a gorge where the mountains pressed on the 
river from either side, and reduced its breadth at the 
throat to perhaps 200 yards. This passed, we came on 
three or four miles of scenery that much resembled the 
centre rapids of the Assouan cataracts. But desolation 
and aridity did not here entirely prevail. The mountains 
were tossed about in most fantastic forms and shapes ; 
but in the tiny valleys between their feet lay small oases, 
and crops of corn, already two feet high, clumps of 
palms, and thickets of mimosa, hid in brilliant or metallic 
green the black granite and yellow sand. In the 
centre of the pass the river spreads out on either side 
of an island, where are the ruins of a fort and town, 
said to be probably of Memlook time. At the southern 
or upstream end of the gorge stands Kalabsheh. The 
ruins are of some size and more beauty, and a line of grand 
sycamores grows between them and the river. Imme- 



i6o THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



diately above this the scenery is less attractive, the hills are 
more regular, monotonous in colour and uniform in shape; 
but the great river, pouring down to meet you in fine 
reaches and grand curves, is ever admirable. The changes 
on the bank too were frequent. The corn-fields, trees, 
and villages, repeatedly gave way to the barren desert, 
which ever and again had forced its way between rich fields 
of plenty, and poured its hungry sand into the very Nile. 

Then Dakkek was reached, and once more we entered 
a country, rich to live in, and interesting to see. Nume- 
rous villages standing on the bare hills beneath the 
mountains, looked upon the green corn and palm planta- 
tions that lay between them and the river. These 
mountains were most picturesque in form, position, and 
colour. Pyramidal in shape and dark in hue, they stand 
detached from each other, each in his own bed of golden 
sand ; and we could not help thinking that they might 
have served as the models of the great Pyramids of 
Gkizeh, so nearly did they resemble those unsolved 
problems. Was it possible that in times unknown to 
history, and untold of, even by tradition, some wave of 
invasion had swept from south to north ; and that the 
conquerors of the rich plains of Lower Egypt, weary of 
the dead level and comparative uniformity of the 
Cairene flat, had sought to imitate the hills of their 
native country, and by the hands of the vanquished 
race built up the Pyramids, — at once a monument of 
their greatness, and a witness to their love of home ! 



A SHAM FIGHT, 



i6t 



The northerly breeze was as usual followed by a spell 
of calni, during which, the weather was hot and our 
progress small. On the 18th January, we stopped op- 
posite Sabooa, where a ruined temple stands a little back 
from the river on the left bank. The water was so 
shallow on that side that it could be only visited in a 
small boat. We remained on the right bank, and as the 
green corn grew down to the water's edge, and large trees 
standing above gave us shade and shelter, we gave up 
a day for the family wash. 

The inhabitants of the town close by are Bedouin 
Arabs, who earn their bread by trading with the Soudan. 
The women came down to fetch water from the spot 
we lay in, and the men brought us knives, spears, 
and shields for sale ; we sat on the bank doing no- 
thing, and thoroughly happy in doing it. About sun- 
down we had a theatrical performance. Several Arabs 
made their war toilette with some ceremony before 
us. Their loose clothes were either well girt or laid 
aside ; a large knife in a leathern sheath was fastened to 
the left arm above the elbow by a ring also of leather. 
On the same arm a shield was fixed, and the right hand 
grasped a reed, the fiction of a spear. When so accou- 
tered and ready for the fray, they went along the bank, 
and in most expressive pantomime showed how they 
searched the desert for their enemies, or in turn con- 
cealed themselves, and laid in wait for them. Then they 
separated and fought each other ; the spears were thrown 



1 62 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



and received upon the shields, and finally peace was 
made by the payment on our part of a piastre indemnity. 

0. the next day went into the town, and was quickly 
surrounded by ladies of high and low degree. More or less 
rich in ornaments, they were almost equally redolent of 
castor oil. They envied her the possession of a watch, 
pitied sincerely her want of a nose-ring, and her gloves 
were a source of unbounded astonishment. "Were they 
her skin, and had she a skin on her hands of a colour 
and texture different to that on her face ? No ! Then 
had she two skins ? No, again ! Then what could 
they be ? and how did she wash with them ? and how 
did she eat, and what did she eat ?" In spite of the 
great diversion created by this last inquiry, they were 
not satisfied until the gloves were taken off, and it was 
not till they had been passed round, turned inside out, 
and C ; s. hands had been well looked at and touched, that 
they seemed to feel assured that there was nothing un- 
canny about the arrangement. This tribe had little in 
common with the Nubians we had lately seen, except the 
use, just mentioned and not to be overlooked, of nose-rings 
and castor oil. The oil, however, was not used in quite 
the same manner. The Arab pours it on her hair, and 
suffers it to drip from thence on to her shoulders; the 
Nubian moistens with it the dry mud of the Nile, and with 
the paste thus made, fixes her hair into rows of long sau- 
sage curls that hang stifHy down her face, after the fashion 
of the head-dress worn by smart shop-keepers' daughters 



DESERT HARES. 



163 



thirty years ago. Nose-rings are not becoming; large 
enough to cover half the mouth, and sometimes to rest on 
the chin, they are hung in one nostril only, and when 
the ladies, not being en grande tenue, do not wear their 
jewels, the precious ring is taken out, and the hole in 
the nose filled with a plug of wood. 

The next morning*, a Bedouin, said to be a mighty 
hunter, brought us a hare as a present. This mode of 
sale precludes all making of " bazaar/' and consequently 
costs the recipient rather dearly, besides placing him in 
some embarrassment both as regards the kind and amount 
of backshish to be given in return. We gave a small 
quantity of powder and shot, at the Arab's own request ; 
and so pleased was he that he brought us another hare 
before we started the next day, and followed us twenty 
miles up the river with a third. Powder and shot are 
more valued in these distant lands than piastres or even 
beads, and it is well to take an extra supply of ammunition 
for the purpose of giving away. 

The hares were excellent. Shorter and thicker than 
the brown hare of England, their fur was in shading 
and quality more like that of the Scotch blue hare, and 
in colour it matched closely the sand of the desert. 
Their ears were broad, and as long as those of a lop-eared 
rabbit. One we measured was seven inches in length. 

Our men brought also a chameleon on board. This beast 
in the quaintness, the squareness, or rather longitudinal- 
ness, of its shape, and the antediluvian character of its 

m 2 



1 64 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



appearance, is peculiarly a tiling of ancient Egypt; and one 
cannot, at the first sight of it, help wondering whether, 
just awakened, it has not stepped down from among the 
sculptured figures on some tomb or grotto. The one we 
had was seven or eight inches long, in shape like a 
lizard, with flattened sides, and with legs perhaps an 
inch and a half high, that carried the body well off the 
ground. The colour, generally green, changed its hue to 
that of whatever the animal might be standing under or 

ZD O 

upon. The change was gradual and slow like its move- 
ments. So slow indeed were these last, that the creature 
seemed always standing still, and it often required atten- 
tive watching for a minute to see a single step made. 
Throughout the whole sixty seconds, the leg was moving 
with such even deliberation, that at no moment could any 
actual movement be detected. In this manner the chame- 
leon approaches the flies on which he lives, and when 
within perhaps a couple of inches, he shoots out a long 
tongue and licks them into his mouth. The foot, unique in 
shape, resembles two hands set almost palm to palm on 
one arm, and the animal laps them round any small branch 
he may choose to travel on. TVe tried hard to make a 
pet of our chameleon but he would not thrive. Food was 
plentiful : there rarely is a lack of flies in plague-stricken 
Egypt, and he caught and ate them ; but his sides grew 
flatter and flatter till they resembled two planks, and 
after three days of captivity on our deck he disappeared. 
Yet another natural history curiosity was brought to us 



SUNSETS. 



165 



at Sabooa, in the shape of a Nile turtle. It was an ugly- 
looking, flat, thin reptile, about double the size of a soup 
plate, and great as was our curiosity to know whether he 
would turn into " turtle," we had not the courage or the 
stomach to try him. He refused, too, to die, and lived, as 
Ibrahim told me with such cruel glee that I almost struck 
him, for two hours after he had been " ammazzato." 

But Sabooa has a far higher claim to notice than either 
hares or chameleons. It is the centre of the land par 
excellence of sunsets. The sunsets of Egypt are nearly 
always beautiful, and the after-glow especially is of sur- 
passing loveliness. But the sunsets of. this part of 
Nubia as far excel those of Egypt, as the sunsets of 
the Eiviera exceed in beauty any we see in England. 
Who can describe the softness of tone, what words can 
paint the gorgeous nature of their colouring ! The after- 
noon before we reached Sabooa, we chanced to stop in a 
reach that ran east and west. Some light fleecy clouds 
floated in the western heaven, and extended overhead 
in small flecks scarce larger than big snow-flakes. When 
the sun was below the horizon, these clouds were dyed 
with shade upon shade of colour the most brilliant and 
glorious conceivable. To the north the bank, somewhat 
thicker, was of a deep plum colour; to the west the 
clouds, rippled like the sands of the sea, were of a 
brilliant ruby red, with an underlining and lower skirt of 
golden orange. Above our heads and to the east, these 
various hues were reflected again and again, and the river 



i66 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



acted as a gigantic mirror of Venetian glass, stained 
orange, red, and purple. In the south, nature, that 
greatest of artists, threw in as a contrast the sobriety of 
that limpid blue, so soft, so clear and translucent, so full 
of repose, and yet so bright that out of it there seems 
to come forth light, — that blue which is only found on the 
tops of mountains, or in those desert countries where the 
air is so pure as scarcely to restrain the sight, or have 
power to fill and swell the lungs. 

For the five or six days we were in the neighbourhood 
of Sabooa, both in going up and coming down, such 
sunsets as these were seen every evening, and I gather 
from other Nile travellers that the setting of the sun is, 
in this district, nearly always exceptionally beautiful. 

On the twenty-first we reached Korosco, something 
more than one hundred miles distant from Philge. Our 
progress had been very slow, owing to the calm weather 
and our laziness, or perhaps enjoyment would be a more 
fitting word. How could one wish to hurry through 
such a country, or haste to shorten one's stay in Nubia's 
perfect climate ! All we cared to do was to change the 
scene of our nightly bivouac, and we were more inclined 
to deprecate any force in the wind than to woo its breath 
with sailor's whistle. Our days' journeys were therefore 
generally performed in the laziest and sleepiest of man- 
ners, and only once, shortly before reaching Korosco, 
were we woke for a moment from our apathy. We were 
towing, when we came to a small ledge of rock that ran 



A SLIGHT MISHAP. 



167 



out as a spur from the bank, and caused a strong 
stream to eddy off its point. As the bow of the dahabeah 
entered this, and the weight of water struck it, the men 
were in an instant pulled backward, and in another the rope 
was snatched from their grasp, and we went at the 
mercy of the current hurrying down the stream. Less 
fortunate than when a similar accident happened to us in 
Egypt, we were carried a full mile before our men 
regained control of the boat; and when we once more 
reached the dangerous point, it required the united efforts 
of the crews of three native trading boats and of our 
own to enable us in turn to pass it. 

These Barabra boats, as they are called (Nubia is 
Barabra in Arab tongue), are of the same shape and 
fashion as the dahabeah of Egypt. But, something 
shorter in build, and higher at the bow and stern, they 
resemble some vessel of the 16th century, with high 
ends and shallow waist. They are generally crowded with 
Ethiopians, and a boat of our size would often carry a 
crew three times as numerous. The Nubian is born in a 
poor country, and entertains for it that strong affection 
so commonly felt for the land or person that gives 
little in return. Often obliged to seek out of it his 
means of subsistence, he stores up every piastre that he 
can win in Egypt, and hurries back to spend it at home. 
The traders' boats, generally light on their upstream 
voyage, will always give him a passage on easy terms. 
As long as the wind blows he finds a seat on deck, where 



1 68 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



he smokes, chatters, and sleeps with his fellows and the 
crew. When the breeze falls he lands, and, leaning on 
the towrope, helps the boat's ascent to the extent of his 
weight. Thus we often saw ten to twenty men towing a 
boat no bigger than our own, whilst the whole crew sat 
at ease on the deck. Good-humoured and good-natured 
fellows they were, always ready to give a hand by day and 
at night ; and their fires, songs, and tomtom, when at a 
little distance, added much to the picturesqueness of the 
scene. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



KOEOSCO TO WADI HALFEH. 

Feoh Eorosco the great road to Shendy and Sennar leads 
across the desert in almost a due southerly direction, and 
rejoins the Nile between the fourth and fifth cataracts, 
at Aboo Hanied. The river in the interval has made a 
great bend to the westward, and has in retracement of its 
steps run southward no less than a degree and a half. 
Most of the caravans to and fro the south start therefore 
from Eorosco, and we found the banks of the town well 
lined with merchandise. Among the stores were gun- 
carriages, carts, and many bales belonging to the expedi- 
tion of Sir S. Baker. No harm could occur to any goods 
in that dry air; corn and dates, beans and calico, all alike 
lay out, fearless of rain or dew. 

The Mle between Eorosco and Derr changes its usual 
direction, and runs S.E., so that to ascend this part of 
the river the boats have to turn their heads in the teeth 
of the prevailing wind. The distance between the two 
towns is about fifteen miles ; the channel is impeded by 
numerous rocks and sandbanks. One bank is rendered 
almost unapproachable by shallow water ; the other, high 
and steep, is lined by a single row of a tree armed with 
a prickly thorn, whose roots on one side grow into the 
desert, on the other stretch into the water. The use of the 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



tow-rope is thus made doubly difficult. The branches catch 
and check it ; the thorns wound the men's feet, and tear 
their bare legs. This part of the river, therefore, causes 
great detention, and is much dreaded by the boatmen. 

We found assembled at Korosco a fleet of Barabra 
boats, and no less than four other dahabeahs. The 
early morning was dead calm, and we sent our cook 
ashore for meat. But at 8 a gentle breeze sprang up, a 
breeze from the south-west, as unusual as it was welcome. 
Great was the noise and confusion ; the whole fleet at 
once got under weigh, we with our accustomed tardiness 
last of all. Everybody's all sail was set, and away we 
went. Everybody's cook was ashore, for rumours, this 
time true (the words of truth, banished from Egypt, 
still exist in Kubia), had reached us of beef. Beef, a 
thing undreamt of since Cairo was left below us ! 

So as we ran along the shore, we saw the chefs of the 
fleet, meat-laden, running too ; and the Barabras' also, 
disturbed on their various errands or idlings, seeking in 
crowds to catch up their respective boats. At first the 
boats easily beat the men, but soon an awkward bend 
brought us up so close hauled that we could hardly stem 
the stream. Then much jockeyship ensued, and every 
reis sought to coax his boat clear of the rocks and his 
companions. Some took to their tow-ropes, and these 
we slipped. Rejoicing in our better luck, or as we called 
it judgment, we had passed half the fleet, when a large 
dahabeah ran aground in front and inside of us. It was 



JOCKEYING. 



171 



impossible for us to pass her, and equally impossible for 
anything to pass us. Being in shallow water, we were 
able to hold our position with the punting-poles ; but we 
could not pole against the stream, it was too strong ; we 
could not tow, for she lay between us and the bank, and 
the wind was not favourable enough to allow of our run- 
ning by : so our sails were furled. There she stuck, and 
there we stuck, and everybody else in a line stuck be- 
hind us. As the fitful breeze veered a point or so, more 
or less in our favour, Eadouan proposed that we should 
watch our opportunity, and try to sail by. The reis 
called him a fool for his pains, and we waited. Then as 
the dahabeah ahead could not be got off, the patience we 
had so largely of late been cultivating, vanished, and I 
ranged myself on Radouan's side. Soon we saw a 
darker ruffle coming over the surface of the river. 
" Make sail I" was cried, It was well done and handily 
done, and we sailed by the impeding boat, and right up 
the river at the head of the dahabeahs. 

Emboldened by success, we then took advantage of the 
slant of wind to cross the river to the windward side. It 
held good till we had reached the slack water under the 
towing-bank, and we looked across to see every boat of 
the fleet to leeward of us, and on the wrong side of the swift 
Kile. It was great fun to all. We were delighted, after 
Western fashion, to win a race, to beat anything or any- 
body \ the crew, as men of the East, to enjoy the fruits 
of victory in lessened toil. But enthusiasm is contagi- 



i?2 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN, 

* 

ous ; our high spirits infected the whole crew, and when, 
immediately afterwards, the wind died away, the men, 
with the old reis at their head, jumped ashore with the 
tow-rope, and spite of trees and thorns we reached that 
evening the end of the dreaded reach, and stopped the 
head boat of the whole fleet. 

Everything is, however, soon balanced in this world, 
and it is best perhaps when the bill for success, which 
will surely have to be paid sooner or later, is paid quickly. 
Our account was soon settled ; for if on one day we beat 
the fleet, on the very next the fleet beat us. The daha- 
beahs, whose masters have generally less time on hand 
than we had, got under weigh betimes, and when our 
breakfast was over, about 8.30, we saw that they had 
been towed up to within a mile of us. As we were 
looking at them, sail after sail was loosened, and the first 
breath of a fair breeze fell on our cheeks. As quickly 
as possible we got under weigh, so also did the Barabra 
boats, which were now close up to us. In a moment 
a Nubian regatta had been extemporised; it was a very 
pretty sight. We were in the elbow of a bend where 
the river resumes its ordinary course. To the south 
we looked up the fine reach that leads to Derr, to 
the north-east down to Korosco. The dahabeahs were 
coming up to us in a cluster, hand over hand, 
their large, long, and tapering lateen sails bellied 
out with a strong breeze, that drove them gaily up the 
stream. Close behind us were eighteen Barabra boats 



LEFT BEHIND. 



173 



just feeling the coming wind, and bending thankfully to 
each puff as it gave them life and motion. For a short 
time we led, then one or two of the larger boats passed 
us, and soon we found ourselves in the ruck. One by- 
one they came up, carrying a better breeze with them, 
and for some minutes we formed one of a line of four, 
who, by this time going at full speed, rushed abreast up 
the river, with their yards almost touching. For a little 
while we held our own ; then one of them, as big again 
as we were, came surging against our quarter, and drove 
us on to the boat on our other side. Before we had 
recovered the shock we had become the last of the line, 
now no longer drawn across, but down the river's course ; 
and then, alas for our pride ! one by one all the larger boats 
came up, stood level with us for a moment, and then sped 
by. After an hour or so we were joined by the two 
largest dahabeahs, the Stella and the Pelican. Grand 
boats, three or four times our size, their long pennants 
floated over our yard, and they dashed by us much as a 
thoroughbred canters past a struggling pony. 

It is the custom on the Nile for travellers to rechristen 
the dahabeahs on hiring them. A mode probably invented 
and still kept in fashion by the dragomans or boat owners. 
Our companions in the cataract's ascent had been asked 
to do so, and to pay £5 for the expenses. They there- 
upon, of frugal mind, though on pleasure bent, abandoned 
the name they had chosen, and their boat was distin- 
guished as u the nameless one." The custom, however, 



174 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



is commonly observed, and as the work done by tlie 
Arab painters is not as good as their prices are high, the 
boat's stern and quarters bear each frequently a different 
name, in graduated degrees of self assertion. Thus the 
Stella proclaimed her shining character in two or three 
languages. But the Italian star was in the ascendant, 
and the French Estelle waned under a cloud that hid away 
its brightness. The Sun, eclipsed by a similar mist, made 
way for the big lettered Pelican; and the Sindbad showed 
that he had once been christened La Marie Amelie. As for 
ourselves, we carried with us the name of Panther, and 
called our sleepy boat the Lotus. 

The breeze did not last more than a day, and the next 
morning, one by one, the few boats who had stopped to 
sleep below us went by, towing. Dahab was in despair. 
Dahab was our pilot. It is customary to ship at Philee a 
Nubian, who takes charge of the boat to Wadi Halfeh 
and back, and receives for the job the not exorbitant 
sum of 60 francs. It is, therefore, but natural that 
he should desire to earn his money and get home. But 
we had read in " Attractions on the Nile/' by the "Rev. 
T. Smith, a book to be recommended to any one curious 
in the natural history of birds, that the author had had 
the greatest difficulties in overcoming his pilot's dislike 
to progress. Dahab, on the contrary, turned frantic at 
the calmness of our weather, bored us with suggestions of 
early starts, and urged the men to get out the tow-rope. 
His conduct was rational, but tiresome, and not in ac- 



ERRORS UNAVOIDABLE. 



175 



cordance with what we had been led to expect. At last 
it occurred to us that we, too,, might adopt the means 
possibly used to curb the impatience of the pilot we had 
read about. Was it not possible that the dragoman of Mr. 
Smith, paid at so much per day, had not been disinclined 
to lengthen a little the passage, and by a trifle to swell 
his profits, but, mindful of the pilot's interest, had used 
all-powerful piastres to make it run with his ? So we did 
a sum. First reckoning our average rate of speed, and 
counting the miles to be traversed during the term of 
DahaVs contract, we came to the conclusion that an 
ordinary passage from Philae to the second cataract and 
back would occupy twenty days. At 60 francs for the trip, 
the rate of pay for such a time tallied about with the value 
we put on Dahab's services. Then we tried by question- 
ing to see if our calculation was approximately correct. 

This was more difficult. There is nothing more diffi- 
cult than to get information on the Nile. Travelling 
without a dragoman, we were probably less taken in than 
the generality of travellers, or, when taken in, we were 
seldom led astray on the beaten path. But every book 
on the Nile must be full of errors. The time spent in 
the country is too short to enable any one to reach the 
truth. To every question the answer is given which the 
man replying thinks will best suit his own interest. 
Ibrahim, during the time he was called the Ruffian, used to 
answer " Perche ? " to any question I asked, and of which 
he did not see the object. Passing into the reformed stage 



176 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



he ceased this rudeness, and answered, " Non sai," his 
Arab rendering of " Non mi ricordo" The reis, for the 
same reason, never knew anything, unless he knew, or 
thought he knew, what it would be best that he should 
know. It often amused me to put questions without 
showing my object, and to see the anxious manner in 
which our people searched about for any clue that would 
help them to an advantageous answer. 

As might, therefore, have been expected, our inquiries 
as to the ordinary length of the voyage from Philse and 
back helped us to no safe conclusion. Dahab, paid by 
the job, was in the habit of performing it in less than no 
time. Our men, paid by the day, had always spent on it 
as many weeks as Dahab had hours. So we fell back on 
arithmetic as the surer guide, and told Dahab that we 
would give him a backshish of half a tarali for every day 
over twenty that the voyage occupied. The effect was 
instant. From that time forth no Nubian had ever 
more dearly loved a calm or hated work than Dahab. 
We stopped when we liked, started as late as we chose ; 
he and the crew, we and the farm, were equally pleased to 
get ashore and lie under the trees. 

The day after this agreement was made, however, a fair 
breeze sprang up, and on the 25th we ran by Aboo 
Simbel, and slept only thirty miles below Wadi Halfeh. 
The next day the breeze continued, and we reached the 
term of our voyage. 

How contradictory is human nature ! We had tho- 



THE GOAL REACHED. 



177 



roughly enjoyed ourselves. The troubles and difficulties 
of our early days on board the Lotas had been only suffi- 
cient to supply the resistance that seems necessary to all 
enjoyment, and to add enough of the sour to render the 
sweet more estimable. Since an example had been 
made of Achniet, our pleasure had been unchequered by 
a single squabble or disagreement. We had counted the 
miles before us, not as so many to be got through, but as 
opportunities to be made the most of ; we had striven 
with and doubted the impossibility of sailing yet higher, 
say to Dongola, and yet we arrived at the southern end of 
our journey in as high spirits as if delighted to have done 
with it. We had made up our minds to regret, and we 
found ourselves glad. 



N 



CHAPTER XV. 



WADI HALFEH TO PHILiE. 

Wadi Halfeh is a very disappointing place. We had 
read of long rows of camels and asses, of crowds of 
Arabs and Barabras ; we had even been told to expect 
large bazaars stuffed with every kind of Soudan produce, 
stretched on either side of the river, and affording a more 
perfect southern African picture than any we had yet 
seen. We found a sandy island and another strip of sand 
that was not an island. Moored to these were a dozen 
dahabeahs. One or two stray camels, half a dozen don- 
keys, prepared with saddles for hawagers, and a single 
heap of barley, were all that was visible of bazaars, beasts, 
or merchandise. So we moored on the sandy strip, a little 
apart from the not extensive crowd, got out our tent, and 
laid under it, ruminating on the many faults in books on 
Eastern travel. They are not to be avoided. One sees 
a bazaar crowded, perhaps, with men and things ; it is 
held weekly or once a month, or possibly once a year. 
He inquires about it, and his dragoman, with Eastern 
desire to magnify and render the sights he shows impor- 
tant, says that it is permanent. Down goes the statement 
for the information and disappointment of his readers. 

We were not long permitted to ruminate alone. There 
was no shade but under our tent, and sheep and turkeys 



ARAB ROWING. 



179 



and chickens quickly crowded in. Then, a happy family, we 
watched the preparation of the Lotus for her downward 
voyage. The hold was unpacked, everything it contained 
landed, and a thorough sweeping, scrubbing, and wash- 
ing of the whole ship was undertaken. This completed, 
the stores were re-embarked, but were packed in such a 
manner as left the whole centre of the hold free. Across 
this open space stretched benches, on which the rowers 
sat or walked at will. Most part of the descent, it should 
be premised, is made by rowing, for the wind seldom serves 
on the return down stream. The oars are worked in a 
manner no doubt approved by the ancient Egyptians, and 
it is one that recommends itself strongly to the lovers of 
gymnastics, as affording excellent exercise to every muscle 
of the body. A plank is placed with one end resting on a 
transverse bench, the other on the floor of the hold ; 
up this inclined plane the rower walks before he makes 
his stroke; making it, he walks backwards down 
again; the bottom reached he falls backwards, on to the 
bench behind him; continuing his stroke he pulls the oar 
handle up to the level of his chin ; next, he passes it with 
his arms over his head, and concludes by falling with it on 
the flat of his back, much as a man in Europe does when 
he " catches a crab ; " then he recovers himself by a pro- 
cess only possible to Arab joints and muscles, and begins 
again as before. Such exercise being insufficient for his 
lungs, he performs it to a never-ending chant. As many 
physical actions as there are in the rowing, so many vocal 

n 2 



♦ 

i8o THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



variations are there in the singing. We were fortunate 
in not having a professed leader. Most of the boats we 
passed were better provided, and the artist had his one 
song, which was over and over repeated. Our men took 
it in turns to lead, and in this manner, though our singing 
was less good, it was more varied. But the crew did not 
like it. The song is given with great pride as a boat 
sweeps in to any halting-place, occupied by other daha- 
beahs. The leader, with a falsetto that wanders freely 
into minor keys, is listened to critically by the boatmen 
he approaches, and his boat takes rank by the extent of 
his compass. We had no one fit to exhibit before a crowd, 
and made our entry silently. 

But to return to our preparations. The hold repacked, 
the big yard of the trinkeet is taken down, and fastened 
horizontally to the two masts. So long is it that it 
extends from stem to stern, and in our case projected 
slightly beyond each. Fixed with a slight slope or 
incline, it barely leaves room on the poop deck for our 
heads, and at the bow for the cook's. As if to show how 
dry is the climate, the sail, rolled together, is placed at 
the angle formed by the main-mast and yard, and remains 
there uncovered. Then the small yard is transferred from 
the mizen to the mainmast, and rigged there to be used 
should the khamsin (or south wind) blow. 

Finally ballast is taken in to sink her deeply in the 
water. Half a day suffices for these arrangements, and 
when completed, the boat is ready for her return voyage ; 



DOWN STREAM. 



181 



but she is so changed as to be hardly recognisable. In 
the place of the long and graceful dahabeah, with her 
tall yards and floating pennants,, is seen a kind of lord 
mayor's barge less the gilding. The heavy spar stretched 
along her length, shortens, and seems to crush her, whilst 
the tiny ballakoon on the mainmast makes her look ridi- 
culous. But all she loses in appearance, is gained in use- 
fulness. By reefing her long yard, less hold is offered to 
the contrary winds, and a deep trim gives the favouring 
current more power over her. 

The cataract above Wadi Halfeh is said to be well 
worth seeing, as is also a view southward, from a hilltop 
close by. But neither could be reached except on a 
donkey, and C. was too lazy, and I not able to under- 
take an expedition. So giving but a single day for the 
arrangement of our boat, we commenced on the 28th 
January, our return voyage. Having sailed up the Nile, 
we then sailed down again. But an American dahabeah 
was smarter than we were. Arriving the evening after 
us in the dark, it started down stream that night before 
we went to bed and we rather admired then* promptness. 
The forty miles that separate Aboo Simbel from Wadi 
Halfeh, are perhaps less interesting than any other part 
of the river of equal length. The river itself forms some 
unusually long and fine reaches, but the banks are tame 
and unattractive. But for the honour of the thing, 
therefore, as the Irishman said in the sedan chair without 
a bottom, boats had better stop at Aboo Simbel. 



1 82 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



Leaving Halfeli at 7 a.m.,, we reached Aboo Simbel 
at 9 p.m. Our day was doubly pleasant. Thoroughly 
enjoyable in itself, it was also a relief to our mind. We 
had been rather afraid of the monotony and tediousness 
of a continuous float down stream. We did not expect 
much from the men's rowing, and thought that progress 
limited to the carrying power of the current, would 
become aggravating by reason of its slowness. "We had 
little cause for alarm. The men, though not often 
working in the severe manner already described, were 
nothing loath to sit on the benches and paddle. So 
between floating and paddling, the days were got over, 
and with each day, a good deal of ground ; and when we 
found ourselves tired at evening, it was rather from 
extreme gratification than weariness. Nay more, pleasant 
as we had found sailing up the river, it was not long 
before we agreed that floating down was still more 
enjoyable. There is a certain amount of grind — a feeling 
of opposition to be overcome — which, continued for a 
thousand miles, slightly tires and wears the nerves. 
Going down, as in Nubia we generally went down, with 
no more wind than sufficient to blow out our pennant, is 
the very smoothness of progress. One floats, one paddles, 
one rows; and as the Arabs chant, one goes fast or slow ; 
but song or no song, on goes the boat, ever without effort ; 
and as the west wind breathes on one from the desert, 
pure as air only is that has not touched man, nor his 
house, nor his belongings, for thousands of miles, so 



ABOO SIM BEL, 



balmy is it and soft, so fresh and yet so warm, that 
coats are unbuttoned, shirts are opened, and one longs 
to be clad in the belt of leathern fringe worn by the 
Nubian maidens, that every pore of one's skin might 
freely breathe the delicious air. 

We passed a day at Aboo Simbel. The ruins, as they 
are called, though the term is scarcely applicable to two 
temples hewn in the solid rock, and almost in a perfect 
state of repair, are the most interesting in Nubia. Of the 
gigantic figures (they are sixty-six feet high without the 
pedestal) which form the fagades of the larger temple, 
one has been broken off, and the upper part of it has 
fallen, the better to amaze the visitor at the enormous 
size of its proportions. But the others are intact, and 
the features and lines of all are sharply cut, as if finished 
yesterday. Inside, the hieroglyphics with which the walls 
are covered might be read by those that run, provided 
they could understand them, so sharp are their lines and 
distinct their character. The colossal statues that take the 
place usually filled by columns, are scarcely injured, and 
in places the very paint remains on the stone. But are not 
all these wonders written in guide books, and is not the 
very temple's self familiar to visitors at the Crystal Palace ? 

Aboo Simbel is by far the hottest place I have ever 
been in. The rock in which the great temple is excavated 
faces east and south. It is set in a bed of yellow red 
sand, that stores up and gives out the rays of the sun, so 
that even at night the air coming from it is hot as the 



1 84 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



blast of a furnace. Any one in need of a hot bath has 
but, at almost any hour, to scratch a hole and lie down in 
it; but if he does so in midday, let him not take off his 
clothes, lest his skin be singed; our crew even pro- 
tected their horny hoofs with slippers. This sand has 
assisted in the marvellous preservation of the temples; 
drifting in with every breath that blows, it has concealed 
them for centuries, and we were indebted to the Empress 
of the French for our full view of them, as it was for her 
sake that they had been completely dug out and exposed 
to sight. 

Two other dahabeahs lay at Aboo Simbel. The tra- 
vellers in one were full of the crocodiles they had shot, 
but not bagged, at Wadi Half eh. The owner of the other 
was engaged in a similar pursuit, to be attended with 
similar results, on the sandbank opposite to where we 
were lying. Looking across and down from the elevation 
on which the temples stand, we could see a white spot in 
the shimmering sandbank. This was the hat of the man 
who filled the hole dug to conceal him, and in which he 
was patiently waiting his game. Two or three times the 
report of a heavy rifle was echoed across to us, and I was 
sorry for the poor temsah, whose pleasure in the early 
season of spring was so often spoilt for nothing. 

A crocodile is not easily obtained. Everybody shoots 
at him, everybody of course kills him, but nobody bags 
him. Once only did we hear of a miss. It was made 
when we were at Wadi Halfeh, by an English servant, 



CROCODILE SHOOTING. 



who, lying in waiting in his master's pit, perhaps took 
a nap. Temsah came out of the water rather suddenly ; 
and as these huge beasts move with little or no noise, his 
head could have been touched by the muzzle of the ex- 
pectant rifle before he was seen. Up jumped the man, 
and round went the crocodile, equally frightened ; they 
ran different ways ; and it was not till the water hid them 
from each other that the first was seen to return, pick up 
the rifle, and, with the bravery of a Briton, discharge it 
into the river. But this was the exception. As a rule, 
temsah is hit just in the vital spot, but something al- 
ways happens. If on land, he is able, against all reason 
or sense of decency, to flounder into the water ; if already 
there, he sinks, and inconsiderately dies at the bottom. 
We used to regret, therefore, the resultless persecution 
to which he is subjected. He does no harm, as far as we 
could hear, in this part of the river ; and his presence is 
an attraction in itself, and a compensating set-off to the 
cockneyism of the telegraph wire. 

In the night we got up to see the Southern Cross. 
We had read of it as a nightly object of interest, and had 
been led to hope that it would rise during reasonable 
hours. Strange to say, no one of our crew knew any- 
thing about it. Great as is a Mussulman's respect for 
El Shah (the moon), the stars apparently have no attrac- 
tion for him whatever. So we took to waking at odd 
hours, determined, if possible, to look on the great con- 
stellation of the south. It is not always easy to wake on 



1 86 THE XILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



the Nile; the long day spent in the open air predisposes 
to sleep. With open windows, the soothing freshness of 
the night sits firmly on the eyelids. But about 2 a. in., 
when sleeping at Aboo Sim b el, I woke with the con- 
sciousness that something was to be done ; and, looking 
out of the window at my side, there, a little above the 
horizon, shone * the stars whose position proclaimed 
their name,, * * 

' The stars * appeared very large and bright, but 
yet were neither in brilliancy or magnitude equal to many 
others to be seen in this marvellously clear atmosphere. 
The appearance of the Southern Cross is, however, 
exceptionally striking \ and when seen high in the hea- 
vens, the sight must be magnificent. On the other 
hand, the figure cut up here by our good old friend the 
Bear was rather ridiculous. Half round the corner, and 
standing on his head, the light that he gave lustreless 
and dim, it would have required other aid than his had 
we needed to know the road to home. 

The last three or four days of January were, we 
thought, rather hot. The thermometer in the cabins, 
with all awnings closed, ranged during the whole day 
from 85° to 9o c ; the nights also were less fresh than they 
had been. But the thermometer is I repeat a bad measure 

J. 

of sensation, and heat in Egypt does not fatigue in the 
same degree as in England. We found ourselves chilly 
when Fahrenheit stood under 70", and put on our usual 
autumn clothes. But flannel was seldom bearable. In 



DJRESS. 



187 



this respect, as in many others, it is good to adopt the 
habits of the natives of the country lived in. Welsh 
woollens should be laid aside, and many garments worn 
of Manchester cotton. In the beginning of our trip we 
were much struck by the softness of fibre and looseness 
of texture seen in the shirts and underclothes of our 
crew. We sent Abed to buy us some similar cotton at a 
native bazaar. He returned with several samples ; and, 
to our surprise, they all bore the Manchester stamp. 
The calico made for Eastern markets is admirably 
suited to the heat of the climate. Less dressed and 
more open, it better absorbs perspiration, and admits air. 

The Arabs heap on or take off an infinite number of 
cotton garments as they feel cold or hot. Coming on 
deck in a fresh morning, one sees a stout man at the 
helm ; then, as the sun gets power, he diminishes every 
half hour in size, whilst the heap of what appear to be 
blue cotton bedgowns grows at his side. I found great 
comfort in a set of shirts made of this porous cotton, and 
in exchanging thick English clothes for a number of 
thin ones. 

In coming down we were charmed with the beauty 
of the river from above Ibreem to Sabooa. The Kile 
here exhibits in a large measure the contrasts and rich- 
ness of colour which form the chief charm of African 
scenery. The river bank of vivid green, fringed and 
sometimes broken by the yellow red sand of the desert ; 
the dark mountains of granite, syenite, or sandstone, ris- 



1 88 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



ing from out of this bright bed of sand ; the palms of a 
glassy emerald hue, the castor oil plant of olive, the sky 
of wondrous hue \ and the river, here reflecting the rays 
of the sun, like ripples of burnished steel, there giving 
back the orange sand or the cobalt sky, — present a pic- 
ture that such a master as Turner would have longed to 
paint, and despaired to render. 

In one place near Ibreem, soon after the date groves, 
for which it is famous, had been passed, we came upon a 
very arid scene, and were much struck by the similarity 
that exists between two such dissimilar things as the 
sand of the desert and the snow of the Alps. In shape, 
the hills we were looking upon much resembled the crest 
of an Alpine ridge, and the sand that lay amongst them, 
coating the peaks, and filling the hollows, was in 
position and lie marvellously like drift snow and glaciers. 
Precisely as a black rock rises in Switzerland from a 
snowy bed, crops out in Africa a granite boulder from a 
drift of sand. So too with the tracks. The effect of a 
footstep in the snow or sand is identical. As we looked 
at the trail left by a number of camels we saw passing 
over the shoulders of these hills, it required the sight 
of the animals and the colour of the sand to convince 
us that it was not on snow that the tracks were made. 

The hills themselves are colourless where they are 
denuded of sand. The first time we saw them from a 
distance, we thought the shadow of some cloud rested 
on them ; but we searched the clear sky in vain for a 



VILLAGE BELLS. 



speck as big as a man's hand. Even afterwards when we 
knew that they stood in the same bright sunlight that 
lit up the sand all around them, so great was the con- 
trast between the sombre hue of the one and the bril- 
liancy of the other, that it was easy to believe once more 
in the illusion. 

Talking of the illusions of Egypt, we ought not to 
forget the mirage, nor the less common one of the 
church bells. The first we have seen several times from 
our boat's deck ; the last we have heard more than once. 
It is said that the solitary traveller will often hear in the 
midst of the desert, when far away from man or beast, 
the distant ring of village bells. Thinking that they 
come from a passing caravan, he may be lured from his 
way to destruction, just as he may be tempted from his 
road by the mirage. We met more than one person 
who had heard them when making excursions from his 
dahabeah into the desert, and we heard them ourselves. 
But, alas for the mystery ! I am sorry to say it was 
always in the neighbourhood of the telegraph wires, or 
within such a distance of a sakia as might permit the 
creaking of that greaseless instrument, still, in that clear 
atmosphere, to fall upon the ear. Just above Derr we 
came upon a city of these waterwheels. Numerous as 
they are everywhere above Phite, Derr, the capital of 
Nubia, is also the capital of sakia. At nearly every 
100 yards there is one of them; and where the bank is 
high, one above the other raises the same stream of 



IQO THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 

water. Innocent of grease, their noise to those close to 
them is distracting. When passed at the distance of 
midriver, as we passed them where they stood thickest, 
their groans and shrieks blended together, and sounded 
like the hum of a monstrous swarm of giant bees. 

0. landed at Derr to see the metropolis. The houses 
are of mud, but well built in comparison with those of 
Egypt. Nearly every house stands under the shelter of 
a grove of tall palm-trees, and consists of one or two 
courtyards surrounded by a high mud wall. One or 
more corners are thatched with palm branches or straw, 
and form the sleeping rooms of the family. The walls 
are solidly made and nicely fashioned. The entrance 
door alone breaks their even surface, and over this is let 
in a plate, of coarse white delf, or of the willow pattern. 

There is an old temple at Derr, and 0. went to see it, 
but was almost immediately forced to leave it, and return 
straight on board, by the number of natives, who, reek- 
ing with castor oil, and screaming at the top of their 
voices, crowded upon her. This was the only instance 
where she met with any rudeness either in Nubia or 
Egypt. The people are almost everywhere civil and in- 
offensive, and they only vary in their manners in degree. 
The ill effect produced in Europe by tourists is no less 
observable in Nubia. The manners are best where 
travellers go least, and an "antica" demoralizes the 
neighbouring population. Derr, as a very general house 
of call, is remarkable for the incivility of its inhabitants. 



ROUGH WATER. 



191 



The difference in the races of contiguous tribes has 
been before mentioned, and was again remarkable in this 
part of the river. One village would be inhabited by 
well-grown people, with large frames and joints; next 
them would come a race with small bones, and round 
Asiatic-looking limbs. Here Arabic, there what we 
took to be Barabra, was spoken, and a little further the 
enunciation was different from any I should think in 
the world. Every sentence was spoken fast, like an 
allegro phrase in recitative, till the utterer came to the 
last three syllables, which were sung in a quick ascending 
scale that ended in a high C sharp. The effect of an 
ordinary conversation was infinitely absurd. Fancy a 
market woman singing out, " Please, sir, will you buy any 
e-e-eggs ? " 

The roundness of the Asiatic limbs just mentioned 
was so great that C. was unable to put on the women's 
bracelets. Several pair were brought to us at one village, 
of unusually pretty pattern. Broad silver bands, relieved 
by cable work, and having a depressed square channel 
in the centre, in which stood up solid knobs. We wanted 
to buy them, but they were so perfectly round that they 
could not be clasped on an European wrist. 

Leaving Sabooa on the 1st of February, we encoun- 
tered for the first time on our descent a strong north 
wind. So rough was the Nile that after trying for half an 
hour to float down, 0. began to experience the horrors of 
seasickness. Fortunately the bank was near, and we 



192 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



brought up in time to save her from the penalties of the 
situation. But we had fallen among a noisy, dirty, and 
obtrusive people, and to escape them, when emboldened 
by luncheon, we put out again to sea. The wind, 
however, was so strong and the water so rough, that 
after making two miles in as many hours, we were 
driven once more to shore. Short as was the distance, 
our object was attained, and the rest of the day was 
spent in the neighbourhood of an inoffensive village. 

The next day the breeze continued, but with some 
moderation, and by landing in the middle of the day at 
Dakkek, when the wind was at the highest, we were 
enabled to float a distance of twenty-five miles. During 
our halt a great number of people surrounded the boat, 
and several cases of sickness were brought to us for 
treatment. Ibrahim in vain stated that I was no hakim. 
To these Nubians, every white man is a physician, and 
in comparison with their utter ignorance, most Europeans 
have sufficient knowledge to justify the belief. The 
people were scrofulous, and two or three poor fellows 
exposing fearfully sore legs, begged to have them 
cured. The condition of the sores, covered with filth 
and flies, was pitiable. We had no means to help them. 
All I could do was to enjoin cleanliness ; and as far as 
possible to ensure this, we gave them a supply of old linen, 
and went through a hocus pocus which seemed much to 
impress them. For each patient a clean white bottle 
was brought to me on the bank ; with a pair of scales, a 



MEDICINES. 



193 



quarter of an ounce of prepared chalk was carefully 
weighed out before them, and put into the bottle, which 
was filled with water. The legs were then washed. Half 
a dozen drops of the chalk lotion was dropped on to a 
previously wetted compress, and the legs were bandaged. 
The lotion was stated to be exceedingly strong, and a 
change of linen, previously soaked in the river, was 
ordered three times a day. 

No one should go to the Kile without adding to 
his store some few simple medicines for distribution 
among the natives. TVe were frequently applied to for 
castor oil; a great deal is grown in Nubia, but it is not 
nevertheless plentiful, or even to be had, away from the 
villages where it is actually planted. Zinc lotion and 
nitrate of silver for the eyes were in much request ; if 
the latter be too strong* to be used by inexperienced 
hands, zinc can do no harm, and may often render 
service. But the Arab prefers something that hurts. 
Eadouan, whose eyes occasionally suffered from the dust, 
thought little of a weak zinc lotion that did him much 
good, but begged for some nitrate of silver, and held 
back his head with apparent pleasure that I might tor- 
ture him. He was made happy by the smarting pro- 
duced by a few drops of eau de Cologne and water, 
that I passed off as the wished-for remedy. Compound 
rhubarb pills are useful, and tea is a greatly prized 
medicine. Every one who had caught cold begged for a 
few spoonfuls of tea. Laudanum, too, we found serviceable. 





194 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



During the last fortnight the corn had been ripen- 
ing fast, and fields that were green as we passed up, 
had turned golden under the hot January sun. On 
February 3rd we saw the harvest commencing, and 
a mile or two below the plac6 where the crops were 
being cut, we came upon barley standing in te stook." 
In this district the land is thin, a considerable amount 
of sand being mixed with the alluvial deposit, and 
we were told that no second crop succeeds the barley; 
but in many parts of Upper Egypt three crops are annu- 
ally taken from the same plot of land. 

On the 5th, the breeze had blown itself out, and we 
reached Kalabsheh. We stopped to see the temple. The 
ruins are very extensive. The temple itself is of vast 
size, square and massive. The blocks of stone of which 
a great part is built are so immense, and so perfect, even 
in their ruin, that one wonders what force it was that 
has moved them from the positions in which they origin- 
ally were laid. Huge blocks, perfect in shape, lie irregu- 
larly heaped on the top of walls perhaps thirty feet high, 
that stand upright and solid, unscathed by the hand of 
time. The edges are sharp, the corners unbroken ; no- 
thing from underneath has, as far as can be seen, given 
way. There is no crumbling, no decay. They show that 
once they were fitted together ; now they are displaced, 
resting obliquely on or across each other ; but excepting 
the change of position, the masonry is in every respect 
intact. Their whole appearance might be aptly 



IMPERISHABLE RUINS. 



195 



represented by a boy's box of bricks. Having built a 
high square wall, the top rows of bricks should be 
thrown in disorder, some suffered to fall, others to re- 
main standing on their sides, or their ends, or obliquely 
resting on each other. Then a few spadefuls of dry 
sand should be scattered in and around the enclosure, 
*and a fairly correct idea would be given of the state of 
Kalabsheh. Whence came the force sufficient to move 
such masses ? why was it employed, and how employed 
without leaving a trace behind ? 

This problem seemed to us when gazing at the temple 
quite as difficult of solution and as interesting, as the 
one more often discussed as to the means used originally 
to move such weights. After passing some time in Nubia 
or Upper Egypt, one wonders not that things endure, but 
that they ever decay. With us there are at all seasons 
of the year a thousand memento mori. Dry sticks, 
dead leaves and grass, decaying trees, moss and mould, 
fungus and rottenness, all tell a tale of life that was, 
and death that approaches or is. In these dry hot lands 
everything seems hoary with age, dry and sapless, but 
unchanged, unchanging, and unchangeable. With us 
decay is always present, with a promise of new fresh 
vigorous life ; in Egypt life seems worn out, — vitality not 
extinct, but standing ever still. 

The natives of Kalabsheh were as ruffianly as those at 
Derr, and the arch-ruffian of them all seemed to be a 
man who spoke English with scarcely any foreign accent. 

o 2 



j 96 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN, 



A fair was improvised for our benefit ; the bank near us 
was in half an hour after our arrival covered with men 
and women, who offered spears, baskets, henna, and 
knives for sale. The noise was deafening, the sight dis- 
agreeable, and the smell of castor oil scarcely bearable. 
Our men took a good many baskets made of palm fibre 
on board, and much henna. This last was sold in leaves 
torn in very small pieces, and green, but dry. Every 
man took a supply for his wife or lady-love, and not a 
few tried the effect of the decoration on themselves. 
Before going to sleep for the night, the hands are filled 
with the wetted leaves, closed upon it, and tied up, so that 
they may not be opened till morning, when the patient 
wakes rejoicing to find his hands very like those of an 
orang outan, — dark outside, red within. 

We were in such a hurry to leave the noisy, visitor-to- 
ruins-be-spoilt people behind, that we got under weigh 
before the breeze began to fail, and so brought on our- 
selves the first discussion with our crew, that had oc- 
curred since Achmet's dismissal. Floating down stream 
against a strong wind is necessarily slow. The rate of 
progress depends on the respective strength of the 
opposing wind and water. The mode of progress is 
to place the boat broadside to the stream, so as to 
expose her as much as may be to the weight of the 
current. In this position she has also as a rule her broad- 
side exposed to the wind, and her mast, rigging, and 
house, acting as sails, give her considerable way. Under 



BEATING TO WINDWARD. 



197 



the impetus thus obtained, she runs across backwards 
and forwards tacking from bank to bank, constantly 
carried by the current to windward, that is down stream. 
As a rule, a mile an hour may be nearly always made on 
the Nile in this manner ; but where, as occasionally occurs, 
the stream is weak, the boat is brought to a standstill. 

Such a dead stretch of water is met with at the head of 
the Kalabsheh gorge. It was but a very short reach, and 
after drifting about in it for some time to no purpose, I 
ordered the men to go to their oars. Now it is not the 
custom to row against the wind. With a calm or a 
favourable breeze the- men row and paddle ; when a con- 
trary wind springs up, the oars are dropped, the men 
heap on piles of clothes, the boat is turned adrift, as 
just described, and wind and wave are left to fight it out. 
When I ordered the oars to be worked this custom was 
explained — " But we stand still ! " Then, according to 
the reis, custom prescribed a halt. To fall again into the 
hands of the begging, noisy natives^ was not to be borne; 
our order was repeated, and obeyed. 

But Dahab felt himself ill-used. We were more than 
twenty days' out from Phite ; every additional day was an- 
other half tarali to him, and he was outraged at our flying 
in the teeth of the wind. Radouan, who shared the helm 
with him, shared also, his feelings. One good trait in 
the Arab character is their readiness to help each other. 
They divide with their comrades their tobacco, their coffee, 
their every little comfort, and they naturally combine to 



198 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN, 



outwit the stranger. "Whilst our men, therefore, assisted 
by the reis, laboured their hardest at the oars, Eadouan 
and Dahab kept the boat wherever the stream was weakest 
and the wind most strong. Thus all our efforts were 
neutralised. I pointed out that we were taking a bad 
course, and Dahab naturally declared that it was the 
only possible one, on account of the rocks. Eadouan 
then suggested that we should give in \ this I refused, and 
the men strained away again to no purpose. Then the 
wind began to increase, and it was more than the crew 
could do to keep the boat from drifting up stream. This, 
and the knowledge that he was working hard for nothing 
was too much for the reis. Out of temper and out of 
breath with his exertions, he burst upon the scheming pair 
with true Arab impetuosity. Throwing down his oar, 
he rushed on to the upper deck, he pointed to the water, 
the wind, the working crew, his own perspiration, and 
denounced the conduct of the steersmen. Then seizino* 
the tiller he brought the boat^s head to the wind, sent 
Eadouan to the oar, and in a few minutes we were 
forced through the slack water that had detained us. 

"We did not, however, go far. The wind kept freshening, 
and when we reached the foot of the gorge, it was blowing 
with such force through the narrow exit to the open 
reach beyond, that we brought up for the night. By the 
time we had done so, the passion of the reis was spent, 
and his' conscience reproached him for having taken our 
side against his lieutenants. So he came to us, and with 



AGAINST WIND AND DAHAB. 



199 



amazing effrontery said, " There; the master wished us to 
row, and we have rowed ; but he sees now that Dahab was 
right, and that the boat could not go on against the 
wind/' and much more of the same kind; whilst the 
rocks were almost still ringing with the echo of the 
strong Arabic he had been using. 

The next morning the breeze was up betimes. At 6 I 
saw through my window the catspaws already coming up 
the neck of the gorge, and I knew that an hour's delay 
would fix us in the place we occupied till dark. Once 
through this gorge, — it was not a quarter of a mile in 
length — the rocks fell back on either side, the long 
reach described on our ascent would be entered upon ; 
here we should find the wind comparatively weak and 
the current strong. So I ordered an immediate start. 

But Dahab knew all this too ; a little delay was half a 
tarali to him, and of course there was not a little. I had 
to get up after half an hour was wasted, and set the men to 
work at their oars ; but all this tooktime, and the breeze kept 
freshening quickly. It was a hard struggle to get to the 
mouth, and just as we had reached it, a heavier gust fall- 
ing upon us drove the dahab eah backwards up the stream. 

The men behaved admirably : all feared that we might 
be driven against the rocks, and getting out with speed 
the tow-rope, it was run forward in the felucca, and 
fastened to a rock ahead. We then warped up to this 
rock, sent the rope ahead again, and thus in a short time 
hauled ourselves through and out of the mouth of the 



2oo THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



pass. Once through, and in safety, we moored the boat 
to the land, and held a court for reward and punishment. 
Dahab and Radouan were had up and told that they had 
both forfeited all claims to backshish, and the men 
received half a sheep, which the day before had luckily 
been killed. 

We were not a little pleased to see that we had obtained 
complete mastery over our crew. No stronger proof 
could have been given. Our orders had been sufficient, 
after a momentary protest, to induce them to break through 
a custom of the river, when so doing entailed hard labour 
on themselves, and was contrary to the interests of one 
of their fellows. But the confidence we acquired by 
this evidence of our power betrayed us. We instantly 
began to sap it by the present of mutton as a reward ; 
later on we forgave Dahab, and the Achmet lesson was 
forgotten. 

It is difficult to sail on the Nile without a dragoman 
and not to come into collision with one's people. At 
first we were surprised that we did so, but we soon saw 
that it was inevitable. Our objects and theirs were con- 
stantly opposed. They desired to go from Alexandria to 
Wadi Halfeh, and back with the least possible labour; 
we, to make the voyage in the manner most agreeable to 
ourselves. They liked to sail up night and day if the 
wind was favourable ; and to float down without regard to 
hours, if wind there was none. But going up or down, 
if the wind was contrary, they delighted in fixing the boat 



201 



to the bank, and in sleep, coffee, tobacco, and talk. We, 
on the other hand, insisted on a daily change, and a 
nightly rest. The practice of the river, — a law prescribed 
by the men acquainted with the river, and the result of 
incessant scheming against the employers ignorant of it 
and their language — a law made by the men as a protection 
against the dragomans and their masters — was, of course, 
in their favour and against us. At first we did not under- 
stand them nor they us. We meant' to have our own 
way, but to be good natured, and please them ; and we 
nearly succeeded in making a mutiny. They thought 
that every act of kindness was one of weakness ; that 
every gift was a bribe offered to induce them to do some- 
thing that was indeed their duty, but the performance of 
which we had no power to enforce. It was to their credit 
that as soon as they were mastered they became con- 
stantly willing, good tempered, and obedient. The men 
took to the oars when custom prescribed their abandon- 
ment, and the reis, to please us, strict Mussulman as he 
was, killed the flies with the flyflap as he drove them from 
our deck. It was our fault, rather than theirs, that 
though warned by experience we again relapsed into good 
nature, and suffered our influence to be weakened. 

After an hour or two's rest, we started again. The 
wind had got up with the sun, as is usual in this climate, 
but we tacked across the broad river, and made fourteen 
miles before nightfall. On the morrow, the 7th of Feb- 
ruary, we anchored once more at Philae. Our second 



202 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



view of the long Tafa reach confirmed our first impres- 
sions, and we really could not decide whether the scenery 
of these fifteen or sixteen miles was more beautiful as 
seen going up or in coming down. Nor did we change 
our opinion of Philae on returning to it ; like most much- 
vaunted beauties, it has been overpraised. P hilars fame 
should rest upon its ruins. They are wonderful ; but the 
surroundings, the setting of the picture, suggests a wish 
to escape from it, more than it excites admiration. 

The hills, not very high, and not very close, seem to hem 
one in. The river is less the Nile than at any part of it we 
have seen. Split up into several channels, the two which 
isolate Phila3, and are alone visible in approaching it, are 
small, sluggish, and so shut in that the island seems to 
stand in a pond. There are trees and sand and corn 
crops ; but somehow the position in which they stand is 
not happy ; the ingredients are there, but they are badly 
handled; and there is consequently, a want of charm. 
The picture, in short, is muddled; there is neither har- 
mony nor contrast. Lastly, the ruins themselves are 
not well seen except when amongst them. The longest 
river face is a plain unornamented wall. The principal 
columns and sculptures surround or look upon halls and 
courtyards. The towers are fine ; but the pyramidal form 
of architecture, as shown in Egyptian towers and Pylone 
can scarcely be called beautiful. The building named 
Pharaoh's Bed, a square with columns resting on massive 
masonry, is a fine object from the river, and has nothing 



A PAINTED BE A UTY. 



203 



resembling it that we saw in Egypt. But looked at from 
without, Phila3 was to us a disappointment. 

From and in the island itself, the scene is very different. 
Some part of the land, aided by the masses of rubbish 
with which it is covered, stands tolerably high, and from 
it a view is obtained of the surrounding country. The 
hills composed of granite rocks, heaped together in most 
fantastic shapes, the river winding amongst them, and 
the ruins themselves, unite to form a most singular sight. 
The temples and buildings are wonderful in their con- 
struction and design. Two thousand years ago they, no 
doubt, merited the epithet of beautiful, which, they are 
said to have deservedly obtained. Now we thought it 
scarcely appropriate. 

It is evident that colour was no lightly esteemed 
accessory to Egyptian architecture ; and the appearance 
of Philas must have been very different when the reds and 
yellows, the artistic blues and greens, that the Egyptian 
painters delighted to place side by side, were fresh and 
new. Bright they still are in places, preserved to us by 
the whitewash and mud of the early Christians, the lazy 
means resorted to by these estimable people to hide from 
sight whatever offended against the taste of their super- 
stition. It is a pity that they did not all lack energy ; 
but unfortunately, muscular Christians existed then as 
now, and nearly all the figures and sculptures of Philae 
are hacked and broken by hammers and chisels. JSTor is 
this the only damage they have done. Except where the 



204 THE XI IE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



temples stand, and where a few palms grow, almost the 
whole surface of the island is covered with the debris of 
the sun burnt bricks of which their houses were con- 
structed. One great court, which was enclosed by the 
Egyptians with a kind of cloister of remarkably handsome 
columns, is filled many feet deep with Christian rubbishy 
and the grand pagan walls and roofs are partly concealed 
by the remains of Christian ugliness. 

But if the merit of great beauty may be denied to the 
buildings of Philae by men not bitten with the mania of 
archaeology, the highest praise must be given by every one 
to the Egyptian builders. One leaves such a temple as 
may here be seen with a feeling that its architects aimed at 
immortality ; and that in their clirnate, with earthquakes 
unknown, and gunpowder not invented, they ought to 
have succeeded. The character of the stone, the exqui- 
site finish of the fashion and fitting of every block, the 
massiveness of every detail, and the closeness with which 
the gigantic columns support each other, made us wonder 
here, as at Kalabsheh, how ruin or even disturbance could 
ever have affected such a structure. It was easy to see 
where damage had been wilfullv committed: and the 
amount achieved was so small, as only to point out more 
strongly the enormous strength of the resisting mass. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE DESCENT OE THE CATARACT. 

Either we were unlucky in our weather at Philas, or a 
gale of wind is the property of the place. Coming up, a 
furious khamsin made our life miserable ; descending, we 
suffered from a raging norther. Every dahabeah stops 
at one of the two landing-places possessed by the island. 
At these there is no lack of dust, and this dust is mixed 
with straw, feathers, fleas, and all the other abominations 
that boats collect and periodically cast ashore. To make 
the sum of our discomforts complete, we were by day 
constantly visited by the sheiks of E' Shellal, and at night 
musquitoes attacked us. Except at Pkilaa we had not 
heard the hum of one of these pests, since leaving some 
place below Thebes. Every dahabeah is, or should be, 
provided with musquito nets ; but it is a bore to sleep in 
armour, and besides, however good may be the harness, 
such active foes, thirsting for blood, not unfrequently find 
entrance at a joint or a flaw. 

On the evening of the 9th, we dropped down to the 
village at the head of the cataract, and the next morning 
were up at break of day to be ready for the descent. 
Calm is essential for the attempt, and at sunrise in these 
latitudes, there is rarely any wind. The Arabs began to 
appear with the first rays of the sun, and about seven we 



2o6 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



were off. The preparations that had been made were 
simple and business-like. They consisted mainly in 
putting everything that could be damaged out of reach 
of water, and in clearing the hold and decks of all 
encumbrance, so as to leave full room for working the 
ship. The great yard was also dropped down to the 
level of the deck, and all top hamper stowed below 
in the cabin. Nor was the boat crowded with idlers as 
on the ascent. Two Arabs were placed at each oar, two 
more at the helm, and these, with the reis of the Shellal 
who took command of us, and one or two of his aids, 
formed our whole complement. 

The graceful Stella, and another large dahabeah, 
started with us. The descent is not made by the channel 
traversed in going up. We knew this, but we expected 
a somewhat similar fall, and El Bab had not greatly 
awed us. Remembering, too, the fatigue of our scramble 
over the rocks, we shut our ears to everybody's remon- 
strances, our eyes to the example set us by the owners 
of the Stella, and stuck to our ship. Finding us 
obstinate, a place was prepared for us with our ser- 
vants and reis, in the centre of the upper deck. 

The fall makes, during its course, a slight curve, and 
runs between huge walls of rock. On the approach to 
it, nothing is therefore seen except the two rocks that 
in reality form its sides, but which overlapping each other 
appear to be one. The noise, however, as we came near 
warned us that it was no El Bab that we had to encounter. 



A PERILOUS PLUNGE. 



207 



All three boats were close together; the Stella leading, 
and we next. As we came up, and began to open the 
channel through the rocks, we saw the Stella on the 
brink of the fall, and her owners safely looking on from 
above. In a moment she glided round the corner, and 
as her hull rapidly sunk and turned out of sight, we saw 
her masts pitching heavily, and swaying not a little from 
side to side. Then as we came on, we saw her three- 
quarters of the way down, and making tolerably fair 
weather of it. In another instant, we were poised on 
the glassy waves at the top, in the act of making our 
first plunge, and the position was sufficiently critical to 
prevent any of our attention wandering elsewhere. 

This gate of the cataract is no fall, but a rapid or shoot of 
very formidable character. Hearts of brass and triple oak 
must they indeed have had who first attempted it. Seen 
as it was by us only in passing through, it is most difficult 
to estimate the dimensions. But I guessed the length 
from the break at the top to a wall of rock that crosses 
it at the bottom, to be from 120 to 150 yards, and the 
breadth for the most part to be less than twenty yards. 
Either side of the shoot is shut in by a wall of solid but 
not smooth rock, and the uneven nature of the sides 
seemed constantly to throw the water with frightful 
impetuosity towards the centre. At every few yards, 
from one side or the other, sprang diagonally a huge 
wave, and as these side waves met, they formed a series 
of still larger ones, which went in deep and heavy ridges 



208 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



bounding towards the bottom. At the foot of the rapid, 
as seen from above and when in it, is a high wall of rock 
against which it seems inevitable that the vessel must be 
dashed ; but the line of waves that marks the torrent bed, 
turns short of it, and at an abrupt angle from it. The 
rock, impassable in front, is broken away to the right, 
and the rapid, falling back from the barrier it cannot 
overcome, rushes in a heavy surge through the way it 
has won. At the same time that it is thus drawn to one 
side, the wave repelled from the rocks and rebounding 
from it, seems to stand higher than the current line, and 
to act as a buffer to the rock. Of the height of the rapid 
I can hazard no guess ; but it unites in the one shoot 
the height of all the different falls passed in the ascent. 
Once at its foot, there is a strong stream to Assouan, but 
no fall. 

I confess that as I looked down on the rapids from the 
deck of our dahabeah, now in its mouth, I was completely 
surprised, and not a little aghast. The chattering men 
were one and all impressed to silence. C, with woman's 
quicker wit, had preceded me, and already arrived at 
alarm. In a moment more, the leap was taken, and o 
boat was rapidly running along the centre ridge of water. 
The men strained with their utmost force at the oars 
Every one else except the reis in command and the tw 
others at the helm, crouched to the deck. A few seconds, 
and the vessel began to bound under us in a manner 
hope never to feel repeated. Each wave as it struc 



THE DESCENT 



209 



under the stern, drove her already too depressed head 
still deeper into the water below. In the waves carne, 
leaping into the bow, and up they went over the rowers, 
rendering their oars useless, and threatening to drive the 
boat bodily under. Such work could not last long; and 
as we neared the bottom, and should have made the turn 
to the right, the largest wave of all hurled us forward so 
straight, that we left the ridge and made full at the rock. 
Before we could touch it, another wave struck sideways 
on the stern of the boat, and washing up over the deck 
of the cabin, turned us short round. For a moment, our 
side was within a foot of the rock, then the eddy, passing 
us along it into a kind of basin formed under it to the 
left of the rapids, drifted us round till we lay with our 
head up stream. A yell of delight broke out from every- 
one. Ibrahim put aside his prayers till he should find 
himself in another scrape; and the turban of our reis 
was snatched from his head, in token of triumph, and 
as a means of obtaining backshish. Without a ransom 
he would assuredly not get it again. 

But our attention was instantly diverted from ourselves. 
Looking up the roaring passage now directly fronting 
us that we had just come down, we saw the third 
dahabeah entering it. Down she came as we had come, 
and I was very glad that we had not seen ourselves so 
well as we saw her. Our own descent had been so 
exciting, that there was scarce room for fear until it 
was over; but looking on at the peril of another, 

p 



2IO 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



made me very much afraid for her, for what she was 
doing, and for what we had done. As she got into 
the worst part of it, she seemed to be standing up on 
end. Her bow was lost in the waves and spray, and 
I remembered a picture of my youth, called " Foundering 
at Sea," in which a vessel was represented going down 
head foremost. Up to the poop deck, she had already 
disappeared, and this part, crowded with terrified people^ 
stood perpendicularly on the side of a mountain of water. 
But on this occasion there was no cause for fear. The 
dahabeah did far better than we did; holding her course 
with the rapid, she turned to the right, and passed by out 
of the passage before us. 

In the meantime, oar whole crew had been baling, 
and when sufficient water had been thrown out to enable 
us to proceed, took to the oars and rowed rapidly to 
Assouan. Arrived there, we had coffee made as soon 
as possible, the quicker to get free of our super- 
numeraries. Ibrahim would give them no sugar. 
" Sugar !" he answered to my remonstrance, " if I give 
them sugar, they will stay all the day." So we broke 
up a loaf on deck, divided it, then chaunted " all all 
gone," as a nurse does to her children, and sent them 
away happy. 

Dahab was the last to take leave of us. He was a 
handsome fellow, most picturesquely dressed, in white 
cotton robes, a yellow and red silk embroidered waistcoat, 
high breasted and many buttoned, a red silk sash round 



NUBIAN GREED. 



211 



his waist, and a spotless turban. His teeth were Arab, 
that is beautiful, his eyes large, dark, and soft, and his 
eyelashes say an inch and a half long. Is it, by the bye, 
as a protection from the sand that nature has given to the 
Arabs of the desert the longest and thickest eyelashes in 
the world? Dahab's manners were as gentle as his voice 
was low and sweet, and we had long • forgotten his wish 
to delay us at Kalabsheh, so we gave him the backshish 
we had promised, and something over. He was delighted, 
profuse in his thanks, and, perhaps, astonished at the sum 
he received, for he asked for nothing more. In half an 
hour, however, the Nubian was himself again, and he 
came back with a request for powder. Sent away with a 
few charges, he shortly returned and begged for shot. 
Going away with this, he soon reappeared, and said that 
he was ill, would we give him medicine ? " What was the 
matter ? " " Oh ! his stomach did so," and he made 
griping actions with his hands. " What had he eaten ? ;; 
cc The mangeria in the kitchen." The man had nothing the 
matter with him, and his tongue was as clean as a baby's ; 
but I gave him a couple of podophyline pills, with a 
devout wish that they would play him their not unusual 
trick, and give him all the sensations his hands had so 
graphically described. He went, and in a few minutes 
returned to ask for castor-oil. As this would have cer- 
tainly been poured on to his wife's head, I refused ; and, 
seeing that no more was to be got, he went away. 

After such a morning as we had gone through, it took 

p2 



212 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



a little time for reason to overcome the joint effects of 
our excitement and the fear which, succeeded it. When 
we had eaten our luncheon and calmed down, we tried to 
estimate the real amount of the risk we had incurred. 
There had been two sources of danger. It was possible 
to be swamped by the waves, or smashed against the 
rocks. As so often happens, the peril which was the 
most threatening was the least real. It was the wave, 
the surge, the broken boiling water of the rapid that 
alarmed us. It is by the rocks that mischief is often 
occasioned. It can rarely happen that a boat is swamped. 
It not very unfrequently does happen that one is broken 
to pieces. We were told that two boats had been so lost 
in the preceding year, and when at Alexandria, a month 
later, we heard of the loss, that had taken place since our 
descent, of a fine dahabeah we had passed near Korosco. 
Still the quantity of water we took in showed that a 
small boat does not descend the cataract in the year of a 
high inundation without some risk. In addition to the 
quantity thrown out at the foot of the rapid, our whole crew 
were occupied baling for an hour and a half at Assouan ; 
and as bucket after bucket went over the side, we felt 
that our dislike to the fall was not entirely without 
reason. 

A wise man before he maketh a journey counteth the 
cost thereof. Weaker men must content themselves with 
doing the same after the journey is over. It may be 
convenient that I should do so at this the conclusion of 



UNCIVILISED VISITORS. 



213 



our Nubian trip, and so endeavour to determine whether 
it is worth while to go above the first cataract at all. 
For it must be remembered that this excursion is by no 
means a necessary part of a Nile voyage. 

In money, the ordinary price paid to the sheiks of the 
cataract by a party with a dragoman is from £20 to £30; 
we, with extra backshish, paid £10. But the cost in 
annoyance is far heavier. For a day at least previous to 
the ascent, for two days during it, for the day of the 
descent, and one previous to it, our boat was taken posses- 
sion of, and during more or less hours we were victims to 
the curiosity and cupidity of the Shellal sheiks and their 
attendant savages. The men did not behave absolutely 
ill, but it is no small discomfort to have one's boat filled 
by twenty or thirty Nubians, uncivilised and noisy, 
screaming, talking, smoking, spitting, crowding the 
decks, and always asking for more. Your bargain is 
struck, your money is paid, but foolish indeed are you if 
you think you have done with it. The backshish was 
included ; the amount, indeed, was a subject of sepa- 
rate discussion, and a distinct article of the treaty ; but 
backshish is an elastic demand. The more that is given, 
the more is asked for, and the payment of one sum is but 
a justification of the request for another. Our last re- 
source was, on both occasions, to enter our cabin and 
shut the door. 

Much of this annoyance is no doubt escaped by the 
traveller with a dragoman. It is customary, and most 



214 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



wise, in the original agreement, to throw on the dragoman 
all backshish and every extra payment of every kind 
whatever, this including, of course, the cost of the cataract's 
ascent, guides to the tombs or temples, and donkeys to reach 
them. It is then the dragoman who has the discussion with 
the sheiks, and bears the brunt of their demands; and if 
the traveller resolutely sticks to his bargain with his ser- 
vant, and refuses to have anything whatever to do with the 
sheiks, and equally to give anything to anybody, he will 
not be much importuned. Still more, if he be strong and 
able-bodied, he can get away from his boat when he finds 
the presence of the Nubians disagreeable, and pass his 
time pleasantly, free from the crowd. TTe were prisoners, 
and the people took advantage of the position. But we 
were not the only sufferers on board the Lotus. The poor 
old reis, between his fear at the cataract, and the teasing 
he endured from the Nubians, fell sick. He lost his 
appetite, suffered an attack of nervous depression, and 
for two or three days could say nothing but " E' shelled 
moosh tyeb" (literally, the cataract is not good). 

The total cost, then, of an ascent of the cataract, is a 
little money, a little risk, not necessarily to oneself, but 
to one's boat-home, and more or less personal annoy- 
ance. The other side of the account is not so easily 
summed up. 

Climate, to sick men, is the matter of first importance. 
Nubia, as compared with Upper Egypt, is hotter, plea- 
santer, but not more healthy. The appetite is less good, 



BLACK FLIES. 



215 



and the mind and body are less disposed to exertion ; 
but the climate is enjoyable beyond description. For 
purity, lightness, and warmth, the air is matchless. 
Clothes seem an encumbrance, and one longs for a con- 
stant air bath. Curiously, and, perhaps, fortunately for 
us, the khamsin did not blow once during the month we 
spent above Philse. When it does so, Nubia becomes 
intolerably hot. From the smaller plagues usually found 
in a hot climate, it is comparatively free. Musquitoes, 
except at Philae, we never saw; bugs do not exist, and 
fleas are scarce, still they are large, veritable lobsters, 
and in agility or appetite they equal the celebrated 
pulce di Rimini. The black fly is the single insect 
nuisance to be dreaded, and from them we rarely suffered. 
But then we took against this universal household nui- 
sance most severely repressive measures. Morning and 
evening the flyflap was worked, and every fly that it was 
possible to reach was remorselessly killed. This may 
have been cruel, but it was essential for comfort, nay, for 
health. Flies get so much more to eat on board a daha- 
beah than on shore that they will not leave it. 

The boat, as it passes along the banks, constantly 
attracts and rarely parts with them. The number on 
board consequently would increase and increase until 
one's life became a burden ; and the repose necessary for 
health in a hot climate would be exchanged for an in- 
effectual defence of one's face and hands. We found, 
whenever our habitual massacres were neglected, that 



216 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



the number of flies next day was doubled. It was then 
necessary to have a general chase. The men, armed with 
palm branches, were stationed along the decks; Ibra- 
him went to work in the cabins ; one by one they were 
cleared out, windows and doors being closed to prevent 
readmission ; and the flies that escaped were, as well as 
those that lived on deck, either killed or driven to shore. 
By such means only was peace procurable. 

Apropos of flies, mention should be made of a spider 
whose species, common in Egypt, I have very rarely seen 
in Europe. This insect, somewhat larger in size than the 
ordinary English house-spider, has a big black mouth, 
and the head is furnished with four strong holding claws. 
It stalks its prey ; slowly and cleverly advancing towards 
it until within four or six inches, when it springs upon it 
as a cat on a mouse. The fly, once seized, has no chance 
of escape. I have seen a small spider carried up by the 
one he had caught, retain his hold, fall with it to the 
ground, and kill and eat it. The voracity of the animal, 
too, was surprising. Lying constantly on deck, I knew 
one or two of the largest by sight, and have seen them, 
ten minutes after a successful hunt, begin another. 

Of the scenery so much has been already said that it 
is scarcely excusable to revert to it. Where it differs 
from that of Egypt, it differs to my taste for the better. 
The two great beauties of Nile scenery are the Nile itself 
and the colouring. In both these elements Nubia excels. 
The short bends of Egypt can no more compare with 



NUBIA v. EGYPT. 



217 



the noble reaches of Nubia, than can the colour and 
light of the northern country with that of the southern. 
The sand, for instance, of the one is to the other as the 
auburn-gold hair of an English girl to the flaxen hue of 
the German. Then the sunsets ! but of these enough has 
been already said. 

In two respects, however, the comparison now at- 
tempted is against Nubia. There is in it an absence of 
life. Boats are scarce, and an occasional vulture or a 
solitary hawk were poor substitutes for the abundance of 
birds seen lower down the river. We gladly welcomed 
the wagtails and swallows, the plovers and storks, the 
ducks and geese, the sandpipers of many kinds, and 
hawks of all sorts, as well as the fleets of native boats, 
when we got amongst them again. Then the Egyptian 
is quiet, modest, and well-mannered, as compared with 
the Nubian ; he is peculiarly sweet, and the other reeks 
of castor oil. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



ASSOUAN TO THEBES. 

On the 11th. February we left Assouan. Crossing over 
from the island of Elephantine, against the bank of 
which we had been moored, C. went ashore at the town, 
and returned with a basket of pottery. Our crew laid in 
a stock of pipe-bowls. The pottery of Assouan is much 
esteemed; the shapes are those of ancient Egypt, and 
the clay is brought from the desert close by. 

We had scarcely left the town when the north wind 
came up rude and strong, and we made fast about a mile 
below. Opposite to us, at a couple of hundred yards 
inland, was a fine sycamore, inhabited by a dervish. He 
ascended by means of a kind of chicken ladder, and had, 
as we were told, already roosted in the tree for som e 
years. C. climbed a high sand hill to look at the pros- 
pect, and gave her escort, the donkeyless Ibrahim, hard 
work to keep up with her. I remained on board to talk 
with the reis and the crew. "Moosh tyeb ~E y Shellal" began 
the reis, between the puffs of his pipe. "Moosh tyeb" 
chorused we all, and then each man described his sensa- 
tions. These people have what we should call "no 
shame ; " if they are afraid, they say so. As they often 
are afraid, there is nothing startling to each other about 
the confession. Surely in this respect they are wiser than 



FISHING. 



219 



we are. Fear is a question of nerves, and a man has no 
reason to be ashamed because nature has made him weak. 
It is a matter for shame if, fear-ruled, he does what he 
would not have done but for the fear ; but to feel fear is 
beyond his control, and seems to me to be no disgrace. 

Indeed, one might go further, and assert without para- 
dox, that the man who feels the most fear may be the 
most brave. Henri Quatre, for instance, when he apos- 
trophised his trembling knees, and made them carry him 
into the thick of the fight, was braver far than the 
Bayard sans peur had ever been. Our Arabs were, 
however, no Bayards. They each told how much they 
had been afraid, and Girghis spoke for all when he de- 
clared his fixed determination never to be frightened by 
the same cause again. 

During the next day or two the north wind continued 
strongly blowing. On the 12th we made a few miles, 
but on the 13th, actually hoisted the ballakoon, and re- 
traced our steps to find shelter. One afternoon was spent 
fishing, or rather watching a native boat so doing. A 
large seine was several times drawn by eight or ten men, 
and a considerable number of fish were taken. There were 
seven or eight different kinds. One huge fellow must 
have weighed at least 401b., and two others that we 
bought — all three being of distinct species — weighed 
101b. and 12 lb. respectively. The 10 lb. one was armed 
with sharp and opaque white teeth, shaped like the teeth 
of a large saw, but rather farther apart. They were 



220 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



uncovered by lips, and exactly resembled the filed teeth, 
of a fighting Ashantee. He was not very good to eat, 
the flesh being rather sweet; but two fresh- water herrings 
that we also took, were excellent. In structure they 
were precisely, and in appearance wonderfully, like their 
North Sea cousins ; and with a little imagination, some 
mustard, and a strong flavour of gridiron, we were able to 
declare that they reminded us of Loch Fyne. The other 
species of fish were, with the exception of one that had 
something of the appearance of a grey mullet, unlike any 
we had ever seen; and we determinedly resisted Girghis's 
wish that we should eat one that looked as if he had left 
his skin in the Nile, so transparent and raw-looking was 
his body. 

On the next day we landed, and passed a most peaceful 
charming time under some palms. The particular tree 
that shaded us was a happy family. The parent inside 
towered far above; round her were grouped 19 full- 
grown children, lusty and strong, whilst at her feet 
sprung up others of different ages, down to the baby, big 
as a full-grown cabbage, Round the group were hung, 
on a rope of palm fibre, bits of stone and brick. This 
was done by the owner of the tree, tq attract the atten- 
tion of any one who came by, so that their first observa- 
tion might be, " What are these bricks for ? " and not 
" "What a beautiful tree is this V That so the envy of no 
evil spirit might be excited, and the tree might ever 
flourish. We were told that each stem, in a fair year, 



FAMILY TREES. 



22 r 



would yield about 35 francs worth of dates — a tree well 
worth protecting ; and, in addition, it gave annually a 
large quantity of fibre, for the manufacture of nets, 
cordage, mats, and baskets. 

What a narrow strip often represents the living part of 
Egypt. Here even I could walk across it. A single row 
of palms alone separated the Nile from the desert ; and 
the outer members of these family trees stood in the 
sand itself. 

We stopped at Kom Ombos that C. might go over the 
ruins. Except to an archaeologist they are best seen at a 
distance. But near or far, in them or from the river at 
their foot, the portico is a fine object. The temple was 
built in the Ptolemaic period ; and here, as in the tombs 
of the kings at Thebes, are marked on some of the archi- 
traves of the portico, the squares used by the Egyptian 
artists when delineating the human figure. These drawings 
never having been finished, the squares are still visible. 
To amuse me, a wild-goose chase was undertaken by 
Eadouan, with the usual results. The sandbank opposite 
the temple was covered by flocks of geese and ducks, all 
far too clever for us. 

On the 15th the north wind had blown itself out. 
With more or less violence it had raged for fourteen con- 
secutive days ; and as we paddled down to the inspirit- 
ing chorus, of "Kooloo sowa" (all together), we one 
and all gladly welcomed the change. The crocodiles, 
too, seemed to enjoy the calm as much as we did. On 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



one strip of sand above Silsilis we saw five huge fellows 
basking in the hot sun. As we came up to within gun- 
shot they slid quietly into the water, and we brought up, 
that we might land and look at their footprints. As 
little noise as possible was made; and every now and then 
a huge black snout, like a log of bogoak, protruded from 
the river; or a boil under water was seen, bigger tenfold 
than the break made by the largest salmon that ever 
turned at a fly. The wind that had blown over the sand 
had left a clean page on which temsah^s writing was 
clearly traced. Between the marks of the feet lay the 
track of the trailing body. One trail measured no less 
than 25^ inches in breadth. Widely outside this were 
the footprints on either side. The whole body of the 
animal would certainly not have touched the ground, and 
the diameter of this brute's chest must have exceeded the 
measure we took by at least some inches. 

Sleeping at Hagar Silsilis, the grottoes were visited 
the next morning. The quarries are also well worth 
looking at, as their size gives some idea of the wondrous 
building feats of the men of old. Later in the day we 
paddled in a most luxurious calm down to Etfoo. "We 
stopped to see the temple. It is immense in size, wonder- 
ful in its preservation ; and the finish of the sculptures, 
paintings, and hieroglyphics, is most minute and beau- 
tiful. It stands about thirty feet below the present level 
of the surrounding town ; so much depth of sand having, 
wind borne, accumulated round it. The entrance to the 



FORCED LABOUR. 



223 



interior is therefore over some thirty feet of wall ; from 
the top of it a long flight of steps made in the excavated 
side leads to the floor. The whole of this grand building 
is now dug out, and gives, perhaps, a better idea of 
Egyptian temples in the several respects of strength, 
distribution or plan, and decoration, than is afforded by 
any other single edifice. There is also a smaller temple 
at Etfoo ; but it is less interesting and more damaged, 
many stones having been quarried from it for modern 
purposes. 

The calm continued, to our great contentment; and 
the next morning we met a fleet of country boats, each 
towed up stream by a motley crowd of poorly-dressed and 
poorly-looking men and boys. We had fallen in with 
the advanced portion of one of the pasha's forced labour 
levies. Poor fellows ! Unpaid and unfed, each man had 
to give his labour and feed himself for such time as the 
work should be unfinished. Should they fall faint or 
hungry by the way, should they fall sick or die on the 
works, it was their own look-out. A paternal govern- 
ment took them in its wisdom for the country's good. 
As lo'ng as their strength could render service, it would 
be used ; when it failed, others would be found to fill 
their place ; and their bones would work in with the sand 
and soil that formed the earthworks on which their life 
was spent. Thus was it on the Mahmoudieh canal, where 
the bones of 20,000 men lay stored. 

It was the custom of the country, and our reis and 



224 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN, 



crew seemed to see little hardship in it. On the present 
occasion there was less than usual. The work in question 
was a truly public one — planned for the supply of water 
to the land of the villages from whence the levy was 
drawn. If the sheiks to whom the duty of selection is 
entrusted performed their office with fairness, the tax, 
though falling with severity on some individuals, would 
produce a result highly advantageous to the community. 
Fagging at schools is looked upon by the upper boys 
with much equanimity. In the same manner was forced 
labour regarded by our people, exempt from the levy ; 
but to lookers on, to those whom education and civiliza- 
tion have taught to value life and liberty, the spectacle of 
some thousands of boys and men taken by force from a 
class docile and oppressed, industrious and ground to 
the very earth by exaction, was as sad a one as could 
well be presented. 

The whole of that day and the next we continued 
to pass boats on the river, and bands of the fellaheen on 
the bank ; and on the third day after we had seen the 
first of them, we fell in with the main body of the levy. 
And very pretty as well as sad was the sight. A rather 
fitful north breeze was blowing, sufficient at times to 
drive the boats quickly up against the stream ; at others, 
rendering the tow-rope necessary. Thus most of the 
boats, in order to be equal to either occasion, had half 
their living freight on shore, who, now pulling at the 
rope, crept along to the time of some never-ending vil- 



THE LEVY. 



225 



lage song, or now, as tlie breeze freshened, ran shrieking 
and howling to catch up their boat, and at all times 
stole and ate everything, not only edible but green, 
within their reach. Each team had its driver, and each 
driver had his stick. TV r ith one hand he beat the boys 
for stealing, with the other he stole dandelion, the Arab 
salad. 

We had now been long enough in Egypt to have 
greatly lost our horror of the stick. In the first place it 
is necessary. Then the people don't seem to mind it ; 
and lastly there seemed to be a natural fitness of things 
in the absence of covering, in the case of the majority of 
these people, from the part that is usually selected for its 
application. The impartiality, too, with which it was 
used could not but be admired. The driver might make 
mistakes if he exercised any choice among the backs ; 
but he didn't ; he simply hit the one that was nearest. 
So beating and beaten, howling and singing, stealing and 
eating, the poor fellows walked or ran along the bank till 
the breeze steadied and freshened, when a general rush 
was made for the boats. The naked part of the crowd 
plunged without concern into the river. With their 
greens in their mouths or on their heads, they swam with 
alternate strokes of their arms, and the body half-chest 
high out of water, after the Arab fashion. The others, 
encumbered by the riches of their clothes, followed along 
the bank, hoping for a chance to get dry on board. The 
river was alive with boats, the banks with men. 

Q 



226 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



We counted in one reach that was certainly not 
more than three miles long, ninety-nine boats. In one of 
the largest of these boats we also counted 100 men. 
There were not many of this size, but none held less than 
from twenty-five to forty. 

All that day we continued at intervals to pass flo- 
tillas of six and eight boats, or of three and four; and the 
next night and day scattered ones continually came up. 
Many men also made the journey on foot. During a 
couple of hours that I lay under the trees lower down at 
Bajoor some hundreds passed by. There was almost as 
much variation in race observable amongst them as in 
Nubia ; and a group of tall and lithe-limbed men would 
tread on the heels of another composed of eminently re- 
pulsive looking objects with distorted faces and stunted 
forms. The levy must have counted its numbers by 
thousands ; and it was discouraging to think of the mass 
of misery entailed by such a displacement of poor hu- 
manity ; of the certain hardship and probable disease 
consequent on bringing together so many boys and men, 
poor and ignorant, dirty and in want. 

On the 19th February we reached Esne. The next day 
was devoted to bread-baking. Bread is the staple of the 
Egyptian sailor's food. Indeed, with the green food of 
different sorts picked from the crops on the bank, with 
sugarcane when it is plentiful, eggs when they are 
cheap, onions, and lentil soup, it forms his whole bill of 
fare. Except, of course, on those high feasts when the 



BREAD. 



227 



hawager provides them with mutton, or one of their 
number returns from a night passed at home,, with his 
hands full of chickens. They are good to each other, 
readily sharing all they have ; and no man returns from 
his home without a contribution to the general pot. 

Frugal, however, as is their fare in quality, in quantity 
it is most prodigal. They eat all day. Between our 
breakfast and dinner they find appetite for three regular 
meals, each divided by a snack; and the length, or 
solidity of the snack is only limited by the goodies to be 
eaten. The bread is made by the men themselves, 
and baked at a public oven. All the large towns are 
provided with such an oven for the boatmen's need. 
They buy their own grain, see it ground, and throwing 1 
from it only the coarsest part of the bran, make the rest 
into loaves of the size of a twopenny roll. The rolls, 
when baked, are brought on board, and each one is cut 
into three slices. It then lies on the deck for, from four 
to six days, exposed to the sun and wind by day, covered 
by the sail cloth at night. Under this treatment, the 
slices become hard as sunburnt bricks, and would keep 
almost as long. The bread, most excellent fresh, is 
good even after a month's keeping, provided it has been 
dried in favourable weather, and very rarely is the where- 
withal to dry it lacking. It is generally eaten with 
lentil soup; broken to pieces into a wooden' bowl, the 
boiling potage is poured over it. The men sit round. 
Eeis Ibrahim and Eeis Eadouan ate with a spoon of horn, 

Q 2 



228 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAX. 



the men with horny fingers. "When, for want of some- 
thing better to eat or to do, it is nsed at odd times, it is 
dipped in the Nile, and so made masticable. Grain is 
cheap in the country, and the cost of bread to our seven 
men was about two francs per diem. 

At Esne we heard of a great misfortune that had 
happened to our reis. During our absence in Xubia, 
two thieves had broken into his house at Ernient, and 
stolen all that he and his wife and his son possessed. 
The rascals had at night cut their way so noiselessly 
through the housewall of sunburnt brick, that the reis's 
wife had slept during the burglary, and woke the next 
morning to find her house empty. She lodged a com- 
plaint with the sheik of the village, who immediately 
seized upon the two biggest scoundrels within his 
jurisdiction, and proposed to punish them at once, on the 
principle of se mm e vero e hen trovato. Nor was he 
altogether wrong. On searching their houses, a chest 
was found which the old woman identified. The men 
swore it was theirs. She produced the key ; whereupon 
the wife of one of theni, with woman's desire for the last 
word, tore her hair, beat her breast, and called down 
maledictions on the infamous person who had placed it 
in her house for the destruction of her wrongfully sus- 
pected one. The sheik, however, deaf to her pleading 
drew up a conviction, and placed his firman to it. The 
thieves thus convicted, were men of substance, so that 
nothing could seem simpler than the affair. On the one 



A POLICE CASE. 



229 



hand the reis would get his goods, or his goods' worth; 
on the other, they would get the stick. But law is com- 
plicated all over the world; and in this case there was a 
double complication. 

In the first place, the reis's wife, at the time of lodg- 
ing her complaint, had estimated the value of the stolen 
goods at twenty-four napoleons. The reis wishing to 
improve the occasion set them at thirty-five. On the 
other side, the thieves were convicted, they had feet to be 
beaten and money to pay; but one of them was a 
kawass of the effendi of the district; and it was the 
effendi's province to award the payment, and to fix the 
number of the stripes. 

To watch the case we went to Brment, where the 
big man lived. The reis, yesterday overflowing with 
tears, to-day full of wrath and just indignation, demanded 
in his ignorance of the relations existing between effendi 
and culprit, retribution and restitution. The effendi 
smiled ; " the man was a kawass — his kawass : what did 
the reis mean?. Gro to, let him be content with two- 
thirds of the money, and no beating. How could the 
kawass attend the effendi if his feet were sore V All 
that day " bazaar " was made between the complainant 
and the judge. We lay opposite the court, and I passed 
the time in receiving reports of the cause, and in 
inquiries as to the judicial system of the country. How 
came it, that a man notorious for his ill-deeds, was re- 
tained as a kawass ? Ibrahim explained, that morality 



230 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



was no part of a kawass's duty, "basta forte. The effendi 
sends him to bring a man ; and he brings him/ 5 Desiring 
to help the reis, whom we thought ill-used, we offered 
to see the effendi and state that unless he did justice we 
would return to Esne, and lodge a complaint with his 
superior, the pasha, for whom we had letters of intro- 
duction. Then it came out that the reis had already 
made this threat on my part, and further had declared 
the money, of which more than half the loss was com- 
posed, to be mine, consigned to his keeping for payment 
of the crew's wages. "Would I state that this was so in 
court ? I explained that it was not an English habit 
to lie either in court or out of it, and the statement 
made me appear to be so dangerous an ally, that the 
reis declined our help with thanks. 

Erment at this season of the year was not a pleasant 
stopping place. The river bank, lined with large sugar 
factories, swarms with flies, which, attracted by the sweet 
sap of the bruised and broken canes, wax fat and 
unctuous on so rich a diet. . Emboldened by high living, 
we found them peculiarly aggressive ; and no undefended 
inch of hand or face was free from then* cold touch. 
The air too was heavy with the vapour of brown sugar, 
and we were therefore delighted to receive through 
Mahomed, a message from the reis, asking us to leave 
him at Erment, and wait for him at Luxor, twenty miles 
below. So getting under weigh, we floated clown to that 
town. 



CONTRADICTOR Y STA TEMENTS. 23 1 

Tlie next morning C. started at sunrise to go on a 
donkey to the tombs of the kings. At midday the reis 
came on board, hot and weary. Piteously pointing to 
his feet, he reproached me for leaving him behind, and 
forcing him, old, sorrowful, and robbed, to make so long 
a walk in the heat. I called up Mahomed, and it came 
out that the reis had sent no message whatever by his 
brother-in-law, but that this amiable connection wishing 
with the rest of the crew to enjoy the society of Luxor, 
had imagined one. 

The old nian's condition proved how real had been the 
fatigue he had undergone, and it is mentioned as being 
the only thing beyond a doubt in the various accounts 
of the affair he gave. One sometimes regretted that 
there was no truth in Egypt — an absurd regret, for 
Egypt with truth, would no more be Egypt, than Egypt 
be Egypt without the Nile. Eeis Ibrahim was charming, 
his manners perfect ; his care of us was great, and his 
desire to please unbounded, but he was Egyptian, and 
it was impossible to believe a word that fell from 
his mouth. At Erment he told us that the effendi 
offered him two-thirds the amount of his loss. At 
Luxor, the next day, he stated that he was only to get 
half that amount when the harvest came round, and 
he borrowed four napoleons from me for his destitute 
wife. So many and so contradictory were the stories 
he told, that I began to doubt whether he had ever 
been robbed at all, and to think it possible that the 



232 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



whole affair was got up with a design against our sympa- 
thetic purse. 

Left to myself, I laid on the bank under an awning, 
and watched the manners of the natives. Underneath 
me was a small branch or creek of the Nile, which re- 
enters the main river at Luxor. In this backwater the 
Lotus lay fastened to the bank, and above and below her 
were half a dozen other dahabeahs, and perhaps twice as 
many native boats. The last, with aged timbers, torn 
sails, and destitute of paint; the dahabeahs gay with 
the flags of all nations, bright with paint of various hues, 
their long pennants floating out in the breeze, or lazily 
flapping the water. Opposite was a cerulean blue; 
close on our right a ginger brown ; we, lotus like, wore 
white and green, with just a line of pink ; one was clad in 
green; and another had broken out in lobster red. But 
painted however they may be, dahabeahs, with their 
holiday-keeping and bent-on-pleasure look, beflagged, 
bestreamered, and much awninged, are pleasant to the 
eye. 

So too, was Luxor, with its temples, consuls' flags, and 
the palms, on this side visible. Opposite to me, at only a 
few yards' distance, was the watering-place, the common 
resort of all the town. Oldfashioned is the Egyptian's 
idea of water. With him, the Nile is everywhere the 
Nile. The Nile supplies the sweetest of water; and 
from whatever part of the river the water is taken, is 
it not the Nile water, and therefore sweet and good, nay, 



A WATERING PLACE. 



233 



sweeter than any ? This watering-place was being used 
for every conceivable purpose, including many Eastern 
customs that it would be difficult to describe in Western 
language. The men come down, squat on the brinks 
and wash in it. A beggar man sits down by it, with a 
lump of bread we had given him in one hand, some 
refuse green stuff he had picked up, as salad, in the 
other, and dipping and rinsing this frugal fare, he eats. 
Pausing for a moment in his meal, he wipes his mouth 
with his hand, and continuing the downward action, fills 
the palm and drinks. Just below, the cook of a daha- 
beah is killing chickens over the gunwale, and plucking 
a turkey. Groups of women, side by side, wash their 
clothes, and fill their water jars. Those blows that one 
hears, that sound like a stick weightily laid on the ribs 
of a donkey, or the beating of carpets in England, are 
the thuds of their feet, as with a hop and a jump they 
bring first the left and then the right heavily on the 
clothes heap laid at the water's edge. 

Nothing changes in Egypt : these women have the very 
features and shape depicted on the sculptures. There are 
the beautiful rounded arms, the small wrists and hands, 
the tapered fingers, the filbert nails. There, too, are the 
magnificent busts and the well-shaped legs ; and there, too, 
are not that roundness of shape and swell of form that 
Leech has claimed for his English models, as with a sweep 
of his pencil, he made them almost impossibly beautiful. 
Amongst them, however, is a Nubian girl of very 



234 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



different proportions ; and here come three buffaloes, 
driven down to drink, and take tlieir daily batli. They 
stretch themselves in the river, with nose and face alone 
above the surface, stirring up the mud, but in no degree 
altering the colour of the water ; and there on the back of 
a cow the calf has rested its head, and lies tranquilly 
chewing the cud. Next, a string of donkeys delivers its 
load of a salt, called natron, that is found in the ruins 
close by ; and three camels, roaring, biting, and strug- 
gling, are forced into the water, washed and^scraped. 
In the midst of all, a dozen naked boys are splashing 
about, and the town water-carriers alternately fill them- 
selves and their goatskins. All this and much be- 
sides is done ; and it must be remembered, not in the 
stream of the Nile, but in the unchanging water of a 
small and shallow creek. 

Constantly coming up to the same place, were native 
boats, of all forms and build. There is one towing up the 
river bank, full of brown-garmented fellaheen. As they 
come to the point where the creek re-enters the river, 
and cuts across their path, three or four, slipping out of 
their clothes, and into the water, wade through, and push 
their boat across. One's eye has become so accustomed 
to all shades of brown and black skin, that it scarce 
notes whether they are clothed or not. 

Close behind them comes a boat that would be more 
round than long*, if it were not more square than either. 
The timbers of the roughest logs are held together by 



BOAT ANTIQUITIES. 



235 



wooden pegs, whose heads, not driven home, project an 
inch or more from out of the sides. It is caulked with 
mud, and manned by three from eight to ten year old 
clotheless urchins. The protuberance of their stomachs 
is balanced behind, and their whole shape suggests the 
idea, that it can be but a few generations since their 
family went on all fours. Then passes another boat. 
The after-part is filled with the canopy and posts of an 
old English four-post bedstead ; under this covering, the 
proprietor sits in state, solemn, sedate, and proud, in 
much clothing, and with an amber mouth-piece. Above 
his head, a negro boy squats on the canopy steering, and 
the sail, a sheet of holes and patches, is managed by a 
gaunt Arab, clad, in what seems to be the last sail worn 
out, when the present one was new. But the boats are 
endless in variety. One more, the most incongruous of all, 
and I have done. It holds an Arab boatman, a boy 
whose only covering is the scalplock on the top of his 
shaven crown, and a Jew, in red fez, black frock coat, 
white umbrella, and photographic apparatus. But the ferry 
boat must be added to the list. It is exactly the shape 
of a Turkish slipper, and is supposed by antiquaries, to 
have been the felucca of NoaVs ark. More probably it 
was built about the same time as the temple of Karnak. 
Great as are the preservative powers of this climate, it is 
scarcely probable that any of the original timbers re- 
main. No doubt as the ages wore on, a beam would 
occasionally decay, and be replaced ; but there still re- 



236 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN, 



mains the boat, a -wondrous specimen of joiner's power, 
and of wood mosaic. Into it goes a donkey, and another, 
and another. Does anybody know the use of a donkey's 
tail ? An expert, say a costermonger, would answer 
ce for a crupper." No such thing. From the beginning 
was Egypt and the Nile. The Nile never wanted a boat, 
nor Egypt an ass ; and the tail was given to help the one 
into the other. See how quickly it is done ! First his 
forelegs are lifted in, then a man from above in the boat, 
gives a single haul at the tail, and in goes the donkey 
like a shot. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



LUXOR TO GrIRGEH. 

C. passed a day in visiting the Tombs of the Kings, 
situated in the hills, lying at three or four miles inland 
from the west of the river, and two more on the "Won- 
ders of Karnak.^ I am not about to attempt any 
description of tombs or temples that I did not see, except 
from a distance. It would require careful study of them, 
and much power of description, to do any justice to their 
proportions, or to the magnificence of their design and 
execution, and at the end the account would not be half 
as good as that given in Murray. As seen from the river, 
the mind probably only takes in a faint idea of their size 
and beauty ; and yet one could not but be struck with 
astonishment at their extent, and wonder what manner of 
men were those who undertook such colossal works, and 
from whence were drawn the enormous resources neces- 
sary for their completion. 

One matter, apart from the temples, though unfor- 
tunately connected with them, ought, however, to be 
noted ; and there is the more pleasure in referring to it, 
that doing so may assist a gentleman in his apparently 
strong desire to be famous. On all the temples we have 
seen, at Philae, Aboo Simbel, Derr, Korosco, Etfoo, Esne, 
Medinet Haboo, the Memnonium, and Karnak, some per- 



238 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



son had, on this year, painted in black letters, of a 
niassiveness and size proportioned to the Egyptian archi- 
tecture, the initials 

P.T. 
U.S.A. 
1870. 



Occasionally an immense "America " has been added 
to the above, for the information of those for whom the 
letters "U.S.A." and the "bigness" of the writing 
were an insufficient indication of the nationality of 
the writer. Pencils, pens, and penknives, even chisels, 
have been freely resorted to, and record on the Egyptian 
monuments the bad taste of men of many nations ; 
but it was left to one of the go-ahead continent to carry 
about a big brush and a black can, and to blot out the 
hieroglyphics by the square foot. At Karnak alone seven 
of the most conspicuous places attest his wish for noto- 
riety, and I should be glad to aid him to the extent of my 
small power in the object he had so much at heart. 
It may be hoped that his example will not be largely 
followed, as the guides were indignant beyond measure 
at the modern blots made on their ancient show. 

On the afternoon of the 25th February we got under 
weigh. I was loath to drift by Karnak without having 
seen it, but unable to do so, we floated on regretting and 
dreaming. Before long we ran on a sandbank, and all 



RUNNING AGROUND. 



239 



thought of the singular fate which had condemned me to 
pass days at Cairo and Luxor without visiting Karnak or 
the Pyramids was dispelled. A dahabeah is deeper in 
the water forward than aft. This form of the hull pre- 
vents the boat running too far up a shoal, and makes it 
easier to push her off when aground. When such a mis- 
chance occurs on going up stream, current and crew 
unite to push her back the way she came ; and she is 
generally afloat again in a very few minutes. But in 
going down, the detention caused by the accident may be 
much longer ; as the boat takes the ground with her bow, 
the weight of the stream acts on the stern, turns her 
round till she comes broadside on to the shoal, and heaves 
her up sideways on to it. The sensation of this crab- 
like motion as she scrapes along, and of the rush of water 
on her in this position, is disagreeable. In a minute, 
however, the men are at work ; it is an occasion when a 
push in time may save them nine. One by one their 
clothes are thrown off, and they go popping into the 
water. We drew about two and a half feet, the larger 
boats are perhaps six inches to a foot deeper. The men 
stand, therefore, in a depth not too great for the exercise 
of their strength. Placing their backs against and under 
her side, they heave and strain until they get her round 
with her head up-stream ; she is then made to retrace 
her steps. The Arab does nothing without noise, and 
each heave is accompanied by an invocation to Said, or a 
prayer to Allah. On the present occasion, the Lotus 



240 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



drifted hard and fast upon the bank, and it took us an 
hour to get her off. We had, therefore, ample time to 
admire an echo, which sent back every cry. There was 
no mountain, not a hillock, nor a rock within reach, so 
that the echo had the bank and the bank only for its seat 
and habitation; but the response, nevertheless, came back 
with wonderful distinctness. 

There had been a great change in this part of the river 
since we had passed up. As we came to Negadeh we 
found ourselves unable to approach a bank that we had 
previously marked out on account of its good looks for a 
halting-place, and at Ballas we found a rock standing five 
feet above the water, that on our ascent had been entirely 
under it. Such a fall makes no small alteration in the 
appearance of the river and country. We all know how 
a standpoint of a few feet higher or lower alters whatever 
may be seen from it ; but in Egypt the change is far 
greater. We came upon flats by the banks and others 
lying as islands in the river, now green with corn, from 
two to eight inches high, which we had passed under water* 
or possibly floated over. More often sandbanks had been 
laid bare ; and once we saw, for the first time on the Nile, 
a bed of shingle. The land immediately adjoining the 
'river is, of course, wherever the banks are perpendicular, 
less seen than ever, and the fault already noticed of the 
saucer-like appearance of the Egyptian landscape is so 
far increased. But, on the other hand, as the course 
pursued lies generally in the centre of the river bed, 



A CITY OF PIGEONS. 



241 



rather than close to one or other bank, a more extended 
view of at least one side, and a better general view of 
both is obtained. The views, too, of the desert are far 
the more lovely in the descent. The main reasons for this 
superiority are perhaps to be found in the greater con- 
trast afforded by the forwarder condition of the crops and 
in the light. 

In going south the snn must be more or less in one's 
eyes. The shady side of the mountains is, therefore, 
generally seen, and, hill or flat, the landscape loses in 
colour from being looked at against the light. In re- 
turning northward the sun is at the back, and everything 
has all the advantages that light and shade in this bril- 
liant atmosphere can give. The mountains, too, whether 
on this account, or because we saw them before when 
fresh from the Tyrolean Alps, and now compared them 
with the Nubian hills, looked twice as big. 

We stopped at Negadeh, though not at the place we 
had chosen. The town, a very old and curious one, is 
situated in one of the most lovely spots on the Nile. It 
has a large population of Copts and pigeons. Every house 
is equally divided between the two occupants. The Copt 
family has the ground floor, the pigeons the upper story. 
This last, the better cared for of the two, is ornamented 
with whitewash, decorated with red bricks, castellated at 
the top, pierced with many loopholes at the sides, and 
has further, for the convenience of the birds, two or three 
rows of thick peasticks, which project perhaps three feet 

E 



242 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



from the walls, and at right angles from them. The 
whole building is a square tower, and resembles an old- 
fashioned East Indian native fort. The birds are rock 
pigeons and common property ; most if not all of them 
share their time between the town and some mountains 
a few miles inland. Within a certain distance of the 
houses no one is permitted to disturb them. The Copts 
vie with each other in seeking to promote their comfort, 
and so to attract the greater number, each to his own 
dovecot. The young, as soon as eatable, are taken from 
the nests inside, and so the price of the forbearance shown 
to the parent birds is exacted. 

There was a market held at Negadeh, and amongst other 
things we bought for eight piastres, a bundle of sugar- 
canes, as a small backshish for the crew. The bundle 
contained 21 canes, each six to seven feet in length, and 
about an inch and a half in diameter. Thus each man 
had some 18 feet of cane to pass through his teeth. The 
mode of work is simple. A cane is cut into seven or eight 
inch lengths, split into two or three pieces, and chewed. 
Nearly the whole bundle was got through in the after- 
noon, and the remnants were finished by breakfast the next 
day. The quantity of juice contained in a cane is great. 
The taste is that of brown sugar and water, and the 
residuum is " chips." 

As we dropped down to Ballas, it looked so lovely that 
we landed, and I laid under a huge tree that the boatmen 
and natives called cc gemerser " — I give the phonetic 



ARAB LOVE OF COMPANY, 



243 



spelling ; the right name we did not know. The bark 
was smooth, the leaf small, the foliage non-deciduous and 
dense. It bore a fruit like a fig in shape, which, at this 
season unripe, and, as we were told, less than half-grown, 
was of the size of a pig'eon's egg. Cut open, it smelt 
like a slice of fresh cocoa-nut. 

There are at Ballas more than the usual rather scanty 
variety of trees. In gardens close by, enclosed by mud 
walls, grew oranges and lemons ; and, in addition 
to the ordinary date and dom palms, there were nabuks, 
sonts a species of mimosa, and the tamarisks of the 
Brighton squares grown into giants. The fruit of the 
nabuk, at this season ripe, resembles a Siberian crab, but 
is smaller in size, and better to eat. We rather wanted to 
sleep at Ballas, the place was so charming, but Keneh 
was within reach ; and, as usual, our children of boatmen 
strove hard for the coffee-shops. It was their delight to 
stop for the night at some place distant five or six miles 
from any large town. This done, they calculated that, 
with our habit of starting late, we should not probably 
reach the town until too late for the cook to go market- 
ing before our mid-day meal. Then, with the delays 
which accompany every purchase, with the time consumed 
in seeking for the mutton chops, and the cabbages that 
were always promised and never obtained, the afternoon 
would slip by, and we should rest where we were for the 
night. To obtain this was their joy. Why indeed it was so 
constantly surprised us. Most of the crew never left the 

e 2 



^44 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



ship; those that did go returned before sunset. The 
sum of their excess was a pipe and a talk with one or 
perhaps two other boatmen outside our cabin. Still plea- 
sure there must have been, for at least half-a-dozen times 
during our journey, did they try every possible device to 
bring about a halt for the night at such a convenient 
distance from a large town as I have described. 

On the present occasion, hurried from Ballas, we were 
kept going long after dark. One village was no village at 
all ; another was far from the bank, or the position was 
exposed to the wind, and was dangerous on account of 
thieves ; the ghost of a murdered boatman was even re- 
suscitated ; and Keneh represented as being four or five 
hours distant, instead of as many miles. The wind taking 
them at their word, made them speak the truth, for a 
strong north breeze opposing us next morning, every mile 
took its hour. Nor should we have reached Keneh at all had 
not the men, influenced no doubt by the desire to reach 
the coffee-shops, adopted our suggestion, contrary as it 
was to all Nile usage, and towed down stream. The town 
is a couple of miles by road from the halting place of 
dahabeahs. But the never-failing donkeys were in atten- 
dance, and after luncheon C. rode in with Ibrahim. The 
products of Keneh are sweet soft dates, brought from the 
Hegaz, and porous water jars. Excellent are they both of 
their kind; but C. was not at first lucky in her purchases. 
The dates, dark coloured throughout, had not the yellow 
bottoms most highly-prized, and the goolahs all had holes 



A LAZY DAY. 



245 



where holes ought not to be. In short, the tricks of 
trade were not altogether unknown at Keneh, and we had 
bought leaky pottery and dates of an inferior quality. 

In returning home, C. was joined by the reis, Girghis, 
and Mahomed, each jar-carrying and donkey-carried, 
Cantering in at the head of the string, she heard a 
sudden noise behind, and turned round to see a confused 
heap of men and asses, with their legs in the air. Ibra- 
him had fallen over a palm-tree trunk which lay in the 
track, and two or three of the others following close 
behind had rolled on the top of him. No damage was 
done except to the goolahs ; and their pieces it was not 
possible to- pick up. 

Dendera lies on the opposite or western bank to Keneh, 
and a little below it. So we dropped down on the next 
morning, the 28th Feb., in quest of the temples and 
poultry for which it is famous. We saw neither. As. to 
the chickens, the pasha had been before us, we were told, 
and pashas, like locusts, leave little behind them. We 
asked if the pasha paid for what he took. " No/ ; said 
Ibrahim; "il pasha e bug era, and pays for nothing." 
Accustomed to Ibrahim's language, and gifted with 
happy thoughts, 0. suggested that bugero might be an 
Arab rendering of the Italian povero. We were equally 
unlucky about the temples. The pasha had, it is true, not 
eaten them ; but the day was intensely hot, C. was lazy, 
and the shade and coolness of the trees under which we 
pitched our tent were most inviting. 



246 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN, 



These days ashore were very pleasant to us ; but there 
were banks andbanks. Wherever dahabeahs resorted, fleas, 
flies, and filth abounded. Idlers, too, swarmed and buzzed 
about, each with a burnoose equalling in capability the all- 
productive handkerchief nightly borrowed by a Wizard 
of the North. Scaraboei and signet rings would come out 
of one corner, a treasure of ancient coin from another, a 
small god or two from a third, and perhaps part of a 
mummy from the middle. 

The position we took up at Dendera was on a bank 
standing high above the Nile. We had the sun on 
our backs and the air in our faces. In front, on either 
hand, was a lovely view of the river. Behind us grew 
a wood of dom palms, with a few date-trees interspersed 
among their less useful cousins. Under the trees was a 
large plain of vivid green corn, broken occasionally by 
thickets of mimosas. Through the stems of the palms, 
glimpses could be caught of the golden yellow mountains 
beyond. At our feet lay the Lotus. On her and over 
her hovered and perched two immense hawks, which 
stooped from time to time to pick up the scraps thrown 
overboard by the cook. The trees were full of birds. 
One, about the size and shape of a linnet, wore a coat 
of the colour and brilliancy of the green of an Indian 
beetle, and on his breast a waistcoat of burnished red 
brown. Another I recognised as an old friend, by the 
orange tuft on his head ; and my fingers itched to tie his 
feathers once more into a salmon fly. He tempted us so 



THE POST. 



247 



much, that the gun was sent for ; but he was too tame to be 
murdered, and we said, with Uncle Toby, "Poor devil ! get 
thee srone : is not the world big* enough for us both V 3 

The road ran by the spot where we idly sat ; a road 
innocent of iron shoes and wheel tires, worn smooth by 
naked feet. First came the postman along it, going at a 
good swing trot, and holding a six-foot -long stick high in 
the air. A leathern bag, shaped like a portfolio, with the 
sides only sown up, hung over his shoulder, and explained 
why we had been told that the native post is not a too safe 
means of conveyance. These postmen are stationed in 
relays at the different villages on the route traversed, 
and are employed all along the banks of the Nile above 
Minieh, the present railway terminus, and letters are no 
doubt occasionally lost. But the greater proportion of 
the miscarriages occur through the fault of the writers, 
who, addressing their letters in the Latin character, send 
them fearlessly into a country where Arabic writing only 
is sometimes understood. C. was asked at the post-office 
at Keneh, to read the direction of a huge bundle of letters 
for the " Cleopatra dahabeah, by the care of Mustapha 
Aghar, of Luxor. ;; This direction written in our cha- 
racter, was not legible to the Egyptian postmaster. At 
Sioot also, a dozen letters addressed in different languages, 
were put into her hand, and she was asked to redirect 
them. All letters for Upper Egypt should be sent through 
the consul's office at Alexandria, where the addresses 
can be turned into Arabic. 



248 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



Next came a well-dressed Turk, riding a donkey, and 
followed by his pipecarrier, on another. He stopped a 
few yards before reaching us, dismounted, gave his donkey 
to his servant, and came up with a request for backshish. 
Not getting it, he made us a most gentlemanlike bow and 
rode off. Then a Coptic monk, speaking Italian, presented 
a French letter, and in writing, viva voce, and by action, 
preferred the same demand. He gone, it occurred to me 
that the chickens, some time turned loose, had also dis- 
appeared. The two men deputed to watch them had 
done so by going to sleep. The crew turned out, and 
vainly beat the corn. The Faithful had to be called 
away from the wash, and came up the bank steaming 
with heat and soapsuds, with his hands full of petticoats. 
Putting down the clothes, he climbed a dom-tree close 
by. Encircling the trunk with his arms, he pressed his 
feet against it, and walked up the palm like a gorilla. 
Can these people of supple joints be of the same race as 
ourselves ? What white man would sit by choice on his 
hams, or could walk up a tree, with his body in the shape 
of the curve in a capital D ? 

In the afternoon, the reis returned ill from Keneh. He 
suffered great pain in the lower part of the back and 
bowels; his pulse was above 110; and he could scarcely 
walk. We feared at first that he had sustained some 
injury from his fall with the donkey the previous day. 
But our mind was made easy by finding out that after 
his dinner he had eaten, as an innocent pastime, a hatful 



PIGEON SHOOTING. 



249 



of hard-boiled eggs. Eggs were cheap at Keneh ; ten 
were sold for the Egyptian penny. The reis had bought 
a pennyworth and eaten them. 

Sleeping at Dendera, we dropped down to Wishna on 
the morrow. It was market day. On our up-journey, we 
had obtained at Wishna some excellent veal. Few people 
are more confirmed mutton eaters that we, and I had 
always thought veal a bad thing, and beef an unnecessary 
one. But if one lives every day upon mutton, and that 
mutton not English, a beefsteak comes to be thought of 
with longing, and a veal cutlet with appetite. So we 
resigned ourselves to an afternoon spent in baking heat 
for the sake of the supplies we wanted. But Wishna this 
time failed us, and our day at it narrowly escaped being 
one of misfortune. 

I was lying on deck on an intensely hot morning, watch- 
ing the fellaheen streaming into the town on foot and on 
donkeys. The pigeons, in large flocks, were bathing and 
drinking in the river. It is a pretty sight to see 100 
or 200 of these birds flying like swallows over the 
surface of the water j and suddenly dropping into it and 
under it for a bath. But a hungry Arab has no taste, 
and Ibrahim begged for the gun that he might shoot a 
pie. I was weak enough to let him take it ; still more 
weakly thinking that the injunctions given him to be 
careful would prevent an accident. He had not long to 
wait for a shot ; the birds came off and out of the 
river, and dried themselves on the bank in scores. The 



2$o THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



first time lie missed, but his second shot was followed by- 
horrid screams. They came from a boat less than eighty 
yards above us, but I could not get there, and the yell 
that succeeded yell of a boy in severe pain bitterly re- 
proached me. After two or three minutes the screams 
subsided into sobs, and in two or three minutes more, 
Ibrahim came back with his ugly lips drawn apart with 
laughter, and all his sheep's teeth showing. 66 Nonpaura, 
signor ; mafeesh male, basta paura" By which he meant 
to say that I need not be afraid ; no harm was done ; the 
boy was frightened, not hurt. I then learnt that a pellet 
of shot had grazed a boy's wrist, a second had penetrated 
his lip, and a third had scored his eyelid, without, how- 
ever, injuring the eye. Thus, fortunately, we were all 
quit for the fear. 

Soon after, Girghis returning without anything we 
wanted, we got under weigh. The weather was becoming 
too hot, and we determined to get 100 or 200 miles to 
the north whilst it was still bearable. Early as it was in 
the year, only March 2nd, the sun had such power as we 
were unaccustomed to, and did not find agreeable. For 
some days past, the thermometer during all the full of the 
day hours, say from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., was seldom below 
90°; on this day it stood at 98° at 5 p.m. This reading 
was taken on the deck, open to the air, but well shaded. 
In the cabins the heat was much greater ; but living on 
deck, and our registering thermometer having been 
broken, we could not measure the temperature. 



WEATHER FORECASTIXG. 



As the day went oil, the heat "became as trying in 
kind as in degree. At sunset the appearance of the sky 
and of the horizon to the southward, was very peculiar, 
threatening us with a thunderstorm, and probably a 
gale from that direction. So I spoke to the reis and 
Eadouan on the subject. The Arabs could not bear our 
habit of forecasting the weather. At first the reis used 
to act as if he was insulted when we asked him his opinion 
of what the morrow's wind would be. Then he told me it 
would be what Allah willed \ and we understood that he 
thought it impious to attempt to read the signs of the 
heavens. TTe, therefore, explained our belief that it was 
by the will of Allah that coming storms and changes give, 
by signs in the sky, warning of their approach ; that it 
was Allah, also, who had given us sense to understand 
these warnings \ was it not good to use his gifts ? On 
the same occasion we were able to point out a white 
woolpack that was hurrying up on the wings of a coming 
norther — a rarely-failing forerunner of a northerly 
breeze in Egypt. From that day he would often ask 
what we thought the weather was going to be, but he 
never ventured on a guess himself, nor would he willingly 
calculate when we should arrive at this or that place, 
such attempts to look forward being, as he said, most 
unlucky. 

On this evening, however, the signs of the times could 
be overlooked by no one. The heat was intense ; the 
atmosphere close ; the southern horizon thick and lurid ; 



252 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



the sky in the same direction seemed wrapped in a veil of 
mist ; and both the reis and Radouan, expressing much 
anxiety, told me that they expected a northerly gale, and 
would like to make fast and snug for the night. Know- 
ing how utterly unobservant they both were, and conse- 
quently how unweatherwise, their opinion had no weight 
with us, and we determined to continue until a turn of 
the river was reached, where we should get shelter from 
any gale or storm that might fall on us from the south. 

At sunset we were still in an exposed position, and could 
see a mile or two into the desert to the south and west. 
Stretching right across this part of the landscape was a 
line, that appeared to be a thick wall, perhaps 100 feet 
high. Above this, the sky was for a short time of a deep 
blood red, and then as the sun went down, an unusual 
darkness fell over us. Farshoot was close ahead, and we 
determined to get there \ so at halfpast six we ate our 
dinner on deck in a sweltering heat and dead calm. 
The lantern glasses were, at this stage of our voyage, of 
course broken, and the lights were almost extinguished 
by myriads of midges, the only midges we ever saw in 
Egypt. At seven we reached Farshoot ; and the darkness 
had become so heavy, that we ran down the whole line of 
a fleet of boats lying along the bank before we could find 
our way in and bring up. Just as we did so, a distant 
thunderstorm came within hearing, and the black pall to 
the south-west was lit up by constant flashes of lightning. 
A few heavy drops of rain, most unusual phenomenon in 



A FEARFUL NIGHT. 



253 



these parts, also fell, and we went below giving many in- 
junctions as to additional moorings. There was no need 
of such advice : the men, alarmed at the appearance of the 
weather, trebled our ordinary boat peg fastenings, and 
made everything on board as snug as possible. Hardly 
was this done when a heavy storm broke overhead. The 
lightning, very forked and bright, flashed constantly ; the 
thunder burst out in never ceasing salvoes, and heavy rain 
came rattling down. In half an hour all was apparently 
over ; but, to our discomfort, the darkness and stagnant 
heat continued, and a stillness that seemed oppressive if 
not menacing in its deadness fell upon us. However, 
there was nothing to be done, so we went to bed and 
slept heavily, panting outside the sheets under musquito 
nets. 

Suddenly I was woke by the crashing outburst of a 
furious rushing wind. A hurricane had fallen on us, 
instantaneously, like a flash and peal of thunder from a 
clear sky. There was not even a shrub near us, but the 
sound was as the roar of a tremendous gale in a forest of 
trees. The voice of the wind itself was like the falling 
of trunks and breaking of branches. Our men^s cries 
could scarcely be distinguished from the shriek of the 
gale. But what was that awful despairing yell close at 
our side, and then another and another ? I looked 
through the cabin window at my bedside, and saw by the 
incessant flame of lightning, boat after boat of those 
that had been lying ahead of us come flying by. They 



254 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



had been torn from their moorings by the fury of the 
blast, and as they passed close almost to touching of our 
side, the piteous screams of their helpless crews reached 
us even above the general roar and shriek of the storm. 
It was the most frightful sight and sound I ever heard or 
saw. The darkness was like black dead cloth. The 
lightning split its way through this dark pall, with jagged 
rents, in all directions. The water when lit up was white 
and churned, not in waves, but driven flat on the surface 
before the hurricane; and as a boat rushed by us I 
caught sight of a dozen terrorized men clinging to the 
rigging*, and heard their panic-stricken scream given 
within a few feet of me. 

Throwing on a few clothes, I went into the main 
cabin, and from thence, with the door slightly ajar (it was 
fastened at night with a cord like the chain of a London 
house-door), I looked out. The awning of the main or 
lower deck, under which the crew slept, had been torn 
down ; but fortunately it had been driven against the 
cabin, and the men had nearly secured it. The ballakoon 
had been also blown on to the deck, and now lay helping, 
by the weight of its spar, to hold the awning beneath it. 
Our moorings held, and the anchor with a very heavy 
hawser was also ashore. We were safe if there was 
any virtue in hemp. Looking ahead, I saw in the glare 
of the incessant lightning a country boat in the act of 
parting. She seemed to start from the bank as if thrown 
from it by a catapult. In another moment she too had 



THE HURRICANE. 



255 



rushed close by us, with, her shrieking hapless crew, and 
was lost in the black night. 

Then suddenly the heavens opened, and rain fell ; 
and such rain ! It was as if a cloud had burst, and 
the volume of its contents had fallen, unchecked by 
atmosphere, upon the earth. It began, not in drops, but 
as a sheet of water, torn and riven by the wind, but solid 
in itself. With a sudden splash it fell on our deck, struck 
against the cabin door, and entering at the part held open, 
wet me in an instant through and through. In three or 
four minutes the deluge ceased, almost as suddenly as it 
had begun, and the hurricane, beaten down by the weight 
of rain, was gone. The whole duration of the storm 
was not more than perhaps a quarter of an hour, but it 
was a quarter of an hour not to be forgotten. The feeling 
of our own utter helplessness, the horror of the people's 
screams — screams extorted by utter fear, together with 
the frightful storm, were enough to shake any nerves; 
but C. behaved well, as women nearly always do, and 
hurrying on some clothes, had put our watches and money 
in our pockets, and then waited with the air mattress in 
case we should be cast away and upset. 

A dead calm succeeded, coming on us, if a calm could 
be said to come, almost as suddenly as the tempest's self ; 
and with the reverberation of the thunder, the roar of the 
wind and rain yet in our ears, with eyes still aching 
from the lightning's vivid flash, we found ourselves again 
in pitch darkness and perfect silence. The quiet was so 



256 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN, 



unnatural, and the heat still so great, that we could not 
sleep. Every now and then a cry of some one in distress 
came up the river from some considerable distance, and 
it was almost a relief to the tension of one's nerves to 
hear this sign of life from the men we had seen cast 
away. Twice in the next three hours there was the 
sound of a heavy rush of wind overhead, and a few 
splashes of rain, threatened a return of the tempest. 
Then a small storm broke at a mile below us, but it was 
feeble after the one we had just seen, and about 4 a.m. I 
fell asleep. 

On getting up next morning we found the weather very 
threatening, but it was cool. Storm clouds gathered on the 
mountains close below us, and every now and then flashed 
out thunder, lightning, and rain. Heavy squalls of wind 
occasionally swept the river, and passed on to leave a calm. 
About 9 we got under weigh, wishing to leave the neigh- 
bourhood of the mountains, and to see what had become 
of the boats swept from the bank on the previous night. 
Ten of the missing vessels were, we heard, completely 
lost. Our progress was not altogether pleasant, and twice 
in the first two miles we were forced to run ashore and 
anchor, till a squall had passed us. About half a mile 
below where we laid, we passed a boat on a sandbank, 
bottom uppermost. At the foot of the mountain another 
lay, broken in half; close by was a third, dismasted, her 
side hastily patched with new planks and cords to keep 
out the wash of the waves ; and all day we continued to 



A MARVEL. 



257 



come upon others, which had sustained more or less 
damage. For the lives of their crews our people had little 
fear. " These Arabs swim with a vigour and strength 
unknown to us ; and unless struck and disabled, they could 
scarcely be drowned in the Nile. 

A short distance below the mountain's spur we heard a 
noise familiar enough, but almost impossible in Upper 
Egypt. At first we could not believe our ears, and 
thought we must be deceived ; but no, as we got a little 
further on we saw a rapid torrent of bright red water 
bursting into the Nile. In other countries a tributary 
stream entering the parent river would excite no remark, 
but here it was a marvel. In all the 1000 miles we had 
traversed of the Nile, not one brook or rill of water enters 
it. At almost every mile, often at every 100 yards, means 
are used to draw the water from it, but not .one drop is 
added to its volume. Thus the great river flows on and 
on, but contrary to wont, indeed unlike all others, gets 
ever smaller as it goes. 

But the wonder that had just astounded us was instantly 
explained by yet another. A new face of the mountain 
was opening to our view, and from its arid cliffs were 
leaping many tiny rills. Unlike the cascades of the Alps, 
running through rounded rocks and a well-worn course, 
here each stream explored and won its way through un- 
channeled sand and roughly fissured stone. 

Fortunately the afternoon was bright, and between the 
showers the men were able to dry their clothes and bedding. 



258 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



They made, however, much, less of their drenched state 
than we did. Like a parcel of schoolboys who had not 
seen rain for months, they dabbled and splashed in it, 
rather pleased than otherwise when it fell most heavily ; 
and their childish pleasure grew into delight when some 
good sized hailstones fell upon the deck. Abed brought 
them to us as great curiosities, and Ibrahim, equal to the 
occasion, said, " Sai io, e sale." Some part of the men's 
high spirits was, no doubt, an expression of joy at their 
escape. Experiences were compared. No one had 
seen such a storm before. One had seen as heavy rain, 
another wind nearly as strong, but not one had ever 
heard of such a combination of lightning, wind, and rain. 
The Shellal was bad, said Girghis, but the storm was 
worse. 

At Ballianeh, where we stopped that night, much tidings 
of great mischief was heard. A man riding inland where 
water had never run before, had been caught and 
overwhelmed by a sudden torrent. Carried with his 
horse into the Nile, the two were drowned. The crops 
were beaten down, trees uprooted, and the harvest all de- 
stroyed. This was an exaggeration, but that the rain had 
been extraordinarily heavy, was abundantly proved. Short 
as had been the duration of the storm, the broad Nile 
itself had risen a whole hand's breadth, and its colour had 
changed from cafe au lait, to the deep golden yellow of 
the desert sand. The reis, hunting up his recollections, 
said that he had once, as a boy, seen the Nile of the same 



RAINFALL. 259 

colour at Cairo,, and that lie had once heard of a similar 
rainfall at Luxor. I thought of the watercourses south 
of Philae, but though I made frequent inquiries, I could 
never hear of rain being seen to fall, or even reported to 
have fallen, higher than Assouan. 



s 2 



CHAPTER XIX. 



GIEGEH TO SIOOT. 

Sooner or later, in one form or another, payment for 
pleasure is in this world exacted. "We had prepaid for a 
time, and now enjoyed the charming weather our storm 
had purchased. It might have been called cold, but the 
thermometer never fell below 73°, and the fresh north wind; 
as it forced us into our winter clothes, and delayed our 
progress, whetted our jaded appetites, and braced again 
our unstrung nerves. At midday of the 5th of March 
we reached Girgeh. We had been for a couple of hours 
within a mile of it, but the force of the breeze was such 
that it negatived the stream. With the coffee-shops so 
close ahead; the men were unwilling to stop short of them, 
and we thus had ample occasion to test the merits of a 
system we called the crab. This mode of travelling down- 
stream is resorted to when the wind is almost or quite 
dead ahead. The dahabeah is placed as nearly as may be 
broadside to the #ind. The men sit at their oars with 
their faces toward the bow, and row the boat backwards 
with just sufficient force to prevent her forging ahead. 
Held thus in the strongest current, not permitted to 
gather way, the weight of the water has full play on her 
side. Against such a stream as that of the Nile no gale 
of wind could force a vessel broadside, and down she must 



A SHEIK. 261 

go. So down went we, and got at last to Girgeh. But 
"the crab" is very seldom used, depriving the men as it 
does of a recognised occasion for waste of time and 
idleness. 

After marketing at Girgeh, the wind fell with the sun, 
and we started again. In the evening we got on a rock, 
and it was found the next morning, after leaving Ayserat, 
the place where we slept, that the boat had sprung a leak. 
There was a good deal of water in the hold, and we 
stopped for repairs, baking, and drying. At Wadi Halfeh 
and ever since, our people had been laying up stores of 
the country produce, until every corner of the vessel was 
filled with dates, henna, baskets, and other "notions," 
for sale at Alexandria or Cairo. These speculations, 
poor people ! could not have been very successful. This 
was the third time the dates had been got out to dry, 
and the men were anything but muzzled during the 
drying. 

Leak-stopping on the Nile is part of the steersman's 
work, and Radouan proved that he was as good a man in 
the water as out of it, so we were soon made watertight, 
and got off again. Shortly afterwards we were boarded 
by a sheik, a holy man from the neighbouring Moslem 
shrine. His boat was as great a curiosity as the ferry 
boat at Luxor. Almost the size and much the shape of 
a cockle shell, the after part was covered with an awning, 
made like the tilt of a gipsy's cart. Under this sat the 
sheik, rudder in hand. At his feet was a cat, tied by the 



262 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



leg. Next the cat was his servant or slave, ready to light 
his pipe and row the boat. On the mast hung his flag ; 
from the tiny yard waved a two-tailed pennant, home 
made and composed of palm fibre, a string of small pieces 
of tin, and a baby paper kite. The old man's manners were 
as full of ease as his clothes were of holes, and the freight 
of poverty and dignity carried by the boat was sufficient 
to have sunk it. A backshish of four piastres made glad 
the poor fellow's heart, but it also excited Ibrahim's asto- 
nishment to such a degree, that he could not refrain from 
saying, (C ' Per die il signor non da Cristiano." Why did 
I give to a sheik, and refuse a Coptic monk ? We did 
not tell him, as we certainly thought, that a genuine 
Mussulman was likely to be as good a man as a nominal 
Christian, but we got him to understand that we gave to 
a poor and old man, even though he was a Mussulman, 
and refused a young and strong one, notwithstanding that 
he called himself Christian. 

We were now approaching Eckmim. The fall that had 
occurred in the height of the river since our ascent had 
greatly affected the beauty of this part of the country. 
The banks, grown high, intercepted all view between 
themselves and the mountains, and we were inclined to 
hurry onwards to prettier scenery. But we moored for 
an hour or two at the town to enable the reis to pursue a 
debtor. Every dahabeah carries on board a stock excuse 
for stopping the boat, and this is produced whenever any- 
body wishes to see anybody else on shore, or when the 



AN ARREST. 



263 



men generally desire a halt. On board one boat this 
year the crew were given to matrimony. Man after man 
asked leave in turn to go on shore for the night, that he 
might be married. When the cook's turn came his 
request was preferred, but a very favourable breeze hap- 
pened to be blowing, and he was refused. Desirous that 
his marriage holiday should not be lost, he replied, " It 
doesn't signify ; I think I can do it rather better a little 
further on." A less romantic pretext was shipped for our 
voyage. Almost every man on board had in turn asked 
us to put him ashore, and wait, that he might seek to 
receive a debt due to him. Needless to say he invariably 
returned empty-handed, and fixed the amount of his loss 
at the sum he thought most likely to move our sympathy 
and tempt open our pockets. But there are few fictions 
without some foundation in fact. This time there was a 
real debtor, and the reis, by virtue of a writ, took him 
prisoner, and brought him on board. The man had in 
some former year made one of the crew of our boat. As 
is customary, he had received on or about his enlistment a 
month's pay in advance, and, as is not very unusual, two 
or three days afterwards he had deserted. It was quite 
wrong to feel pity for such a rascal, and yet one could 
not but be sorry for him. Dishonesty had not thriven 
with him. Hollow-eyed and lantern-jawed, dirty and un- 
healthy, his scanty clothes in rags, he was the picture of 
misery and want. The wife who came down to intercede 
for him showed that she had borne the larger, the 



264 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



woman's., part of the suffering consequent on his fault. 
How could money be wrung from such a pair ? 

In a few minutes the usual crowd of idlers and swag- 
gerers, each with his pipe, had assembled on the shore 
before us. Between us and them stood the reis and his 
victims. He said; " Pay, or I take you to the effendi at 
Sohag." The man pointed to his torn clothes and his thin 
frame ; — how could he pay ? could blood come from a 
stone? The reis was unmoved — the money or the stick. 

Then the wretched pair went the round of their friends 
and acquaintance on the bank. Most refused any assist- 
ance; some gave a few piastres, and all seemed highly to 
enjoy the scene. The man looked at the sparse pence, 
and submitting, told the reis, in seeming bitterness of 
spirit, that he was ready. Once more the wife interceded, 
pleading so eloquently, poor woman, in her despair, that 
the old man's kind heart gave way. Then Eadouan 
stepped in, and turned the scale against mercy. Ee- 
proaching the reis and scolding the woman, he took the 
man by the shoulder, and pushed him on board. The 
word was given to shove off. On this the friends who 
had subscribed attacked those who had not, and amidst 
boisterous laughing, struggling, and mock fighting, a 
few more pence were collected. The handful of coppers 
was offered to the reis and refused. It was then sug- 
gested that we should pay the debt, but we had learnt 
not to be in a hurry. There would be plenty of time to 
save the poor wretch's feet from the stick, and we were 



THE WRIT REDEEMED. 



265 



by no means vet certain of the amount of the debt due, 
or whether it was due at all. 

So we pushed off with the man ; and were followed down 
the bank by the crowd. Sum after sum was offered in 
redemption of the writ. At last the reis accepted some 
offer I did not understand, and getting into the felucca, 
he paddled off to surrender the debtor and receive his 
due. TThen he had got half-way to shore, a general cry 
was raised from the dahabeah. Our men were afraid that 
as soon as the reis landed the delinquent would escape, 
and he be beaten. The suggestion of this possibility 
brought the reis back to us, and I offered to allow the 
dahabeah to go to shore. This would have given trouble, 
and was refused. Then I said " Send some one with the 
reis," "Yes" said they all, and " No, not I/' said each 
individual. The others then suggested that Mohammed, the 
old inan's brother-in-law, should go, and the man refused. 
Then Abed went. The Arab character is not courageous, 
nor altogether nice. Kind to excess as the reis was to 
our crew, there was only one of them who would run any 
risk to save him from a beating. But risk there was 
none, and the party, less the debtor, soon returned with 
two pieces of silver added to the coppers. 

TTe slept at Sohag, and started next morning before I 
was up. Waking, I heard a tap on the outside of my 
window. "What is it?" The language on board the 
Lotus was peculiar, and the answer given by our inter- 
preter, Ibrahim, was, c: Girghis voglio stop J 3 i( Per die ? 3 * 



266 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



Then spoke Girghis. "Fee bazaar and ballat" (there is 
a market at the town). " Cevitello? " "No, came ma 
feeshy basta meat " (no veal, only mutton) . " What wind 
have we?" " Howa ■ faborabile" says Ibrahim. Coming 
up we had called the north wind favourable, and Ibrahim,, 
who picked up words quickly, ever after called it "howa 
faborabile." 

The markets are most amusing : that of Sohag is well 
attended, the wind stopped all progress, and we went 
back. The town itself is squalid and unattractive, but the 
Nile was full of life. Crowds of native boats were hurry- 
ing up, down, and from across the river to the bank. 
The guardians (native police) made room for us, delighted 
to have occasion for using their six-foot-long sticks, and 
thus to assume the bullying airs of Eastern authority. 

A native boat on a market day resembles the last-to-be - 
filled carpet-bag of a family luggage. The amount it 
holds is only equalled by the variety of the contents; 
however full it may be, there is always room for some one 
thing more. In such a boat are packed away men, 
women, and boys ; donkeys, sheep, goats, and a camel ; 
turkeys, chicken, and geese ; cucumbers, onions, lettuce, 
and trusses of white clover. I had almost forgotten sugar- 
canes, butter and eggs, palm ropes, mats and netting, 
water-jars, fleas, and flies — for such things are there as 
a matter of course. The first thing generally seen 
getting out is the bare leg of an impatient lady. She 
soon follows, with two chickens under her arm,and a score 



MARKET GOERS, 



267 



or so of eggs in the skirt of her clothings which is too 
much occupied with its brittle charges to have due regard 
for any regular duty. Then out rush the crowd : a num- 
ber of brown-coated fellaheen stagger away under their 
onions or clover, or half push, half carry their donkeys on 
shore. Turbans of all degrees of cleanliness follow ; their 
wearers, too sedate to hurry, each with his long pipe, and 
many with a servant to carry it. Perhaps a greater man 
still, with red tarboosh, amber mouthpiece, three or four 
followers, and a donkey caparisoned with a red saddle, 
and even a bridle. Only the very distinguished " brics " 
are bridled. Small people content themselves with a 
cudgel, and direct their donkey by a blow on the cheek, 
or a kick with the foot. Last of all comes the camel, 
rolling, grunting, complaining, anything but the docile 
animal our early education, with its usual accuracy, 
described him to be. 

Along the shore two lines of market-goers came re- 
spectively from the north and south. Men on donkeys 
and on camels ; men, women, and boys on foot. Other 
lines of Arabs and beasts stretched from the bank to the 
town, laden with produce from the boats. These are oc- 
casions in which our men delight, They dress themselves 
in their best — that is put on all their clothes, one garment 
over the other ; and however hot may be the weather, 
they swathe their head and shoulders in a Negadeh cloth. 
The malaiat, as this " comforter " is called, is made of 
thick cotton. The border, of the same material, has let 



268 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



into it lines of strong crimson and yellow silk. It is of 
tlie pattern and quality of a coarse dark blue English 
duster, and the size and shape of a Scotch plaid. Very 
ugly, very stiff, ungraceful and uncomfortable, a good one 
costs 250 piastres (255.), and is the pride of the Arab sailor's 
heart. The poorer men buy malaiats with only a strand 
or two of silk in them, or with none ; but much silk or ail 
cotton, the man so besuffocated swaggers along with an 
extra swagger. 

Whilst the fellaheen worked, and our crew strutted 
off, we used to sit under our awning and look on at the 
crowd, ever changing, ever busy, and as unlike any- 
thing to be seen in the West as was the sky overhead, 
or the air we breathed. An Eastern scene has thrown 
on it a light that warms and mellows everything it 
touches. Poverty, and rags, and dirt, under Egypt's 
sun, are picturesque, not pitiable. There is no damp, 
no cold, to make the half-clothed urchins shiver; and 
lack of garments seems more an advantage than a want. 
After a time, rather long than short, our men, one by 
one, reappear. The breast of each man's gown, or 
gowns, is filled to repletion with his favourite dainties; 
and if he is rich, half-a-dozen sugar-canes lie on his 
shoulder. Last of all comes Girghis. The Faithful is 
in attendance upon him, and carries under his arm an 
immense goose, bought for 14 piastres ; two wild ducks, 
for five piastres; one poor bird alive, with his wing 
broken; and the inevitable mutton, at four piastres 



MOHAMMED. 



269 



the pound. Then we have eggs, ten for a piastre ; and 
cucumbers, broad-beans, and vegetable marrow, fill up 
the basket. 

Leaving Sohag in the afternoon, we stopped to sleep a 
little above Gebel Aridi, where our boat, on the ascent, 
was so nearly capsized. There, too, was it that Ibrahim, 
tired of his first brief struggle for virtue, took the name 
of the Relapsed. There must have been something exciting 
in the locality. In passing the mountain on the next 
morning (March 8th) it again blew strong and squally. 
Ibrahim was mulish, and the next worst man in the ship 
became mutinous. Mohammed, the brother-in-law of the 
reis, was by nature idle, gluttonous, and a buffoon. Pre- 
suming on his connection with our skipper, he followed 
the natural bent of his disposition. Practical jokes, 
horse laughter, Arab shouts, and frying onions with 
grease in a tiny pan, were almost his sole occupations. 
Three days before his conduct had been grossly offensive ; 
to-day his idleness and noise were so insupportable that 
I complained to the reis. Upon the old man's speaking 
to him, he burst into a frenzy of rage, and desired to be 
put ashore. An Arab is a born actor ; the tragic manner 
with which he threw on and around him his gowns, thrust 
his left arm through the belt of his knife, seized his 
blunderbuss and sack of clothes, would have made his 
fortune at the Surrey Theatre. Upon us the result pro- 
duced was great satisfaction. I ordered Abed to get the 
felucca, and asked Mohammed on which side of the river 



270 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



he would like to be landed. The reis threw his arms 
around hirn, with entreaties that he would be quiet. The 
ruffian's answer was to endeavour, or more probably to 
pretend to endeavour, to strike the good-hearted old man; 
but when he saw the felucca come alongside, he began to 
lay aside his weapons and clothes again. I was then en- 
treated to pardon him; he was sorry; he was a good 
fellow, only a little passionate, and his recent outbreak 
was only his play. Besides, his wages had been prepaid, 
and if I put him ashore the reis would be the loser. So 
for the old man's sake, and very much against our will, I 
committed the great folly of granting a pardon. It was 
the last straw, and our influence with the crew was 
broken by it. 

A little later in the day we were hailed from a dahabeah 
not much more than half our own size. Some English 
acquaintances were on board who had come by rail to 
Minieh, and been tempted by the sight of this model of 
a Nile-boat to make the ascent in her to Luxor. Having 
tents with them, they landed and slept ashore each night. 
Our surprise at such a meeting was only less than our 
pleasure at getting news from home, and some Pall Mall 
Budgets. That night we slept atAbootig, and the next 
morning reached Sioot. 



CHAPTER XX. 



SIOOT TO CAIRO. 

It was the 9th. of March, and time to get further north 
perhaps to quit Egypt. Although the north wind was 
almost daily blowing, and the days were not hot, whilst 
the nights were quite cool, musquitoes were reappearing, 
the flies had become a plague, and the fleas a pest. 
Shortly after our arrival, the dahabeah " Cerulean blue " 
came in from Luxor. The Englishman on board paid us 
a visit, and we discussed the late storm. Higher up the 
river than we were, he had not felt it nearly so severely 
But on the 10th Jan. of this season, his boat had been 
blown away by a similar though less heavy squall. 

About midnight a gust of wind fell on the dahabeah, 
and the after mooring gave way. Her stern flew out, and 
the men rushed on shore to remedy the mishap. Scarcely 
had they done so, when another blast broke the moorings 
forward, and tore the ropes held by the men from their 
hands. When the boat was sent adrift, her mainsail got 
loose, and, fortunately, being old, was blown into pieces. 
Then the awning under which the men had been sleeping, 
was forced sideways, and under the pressure of this novel 
sail, the dahabeah heeled over till the water came pouring 
into her. The Englishman, with two men and a boy who 
were still on board, ran to the helm, and with great difE- 



272 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



culty got her before the wind. She then righted, and in 
a few minutes was driven high and dry on a sandbank. 

The next morning her crew and reis rejoined her, but 
it was impossible to move her without the aid of some 
twenty-five or thirty men. Application for this assistance 
was made, and payment offered to the sheik of the neigh- 
bouring village, but it was granted only on compulsion. 
"When sufficient force had been used to him, he went 
round the village with the reis and crew of the dahabeah, 
pointed to a man, and said, " take him." The man re- 
fused to follow until he received three or four cuts with a 
stick from the reis, then he fell in. This process of 
forcible enlistment was pursued with the first two or 
three men ; after that, the already pressed fellaheen took 
sticks, and applying them freely and cordially to their 
fellows, saved the reis all further trouble. 

On the 10th March we left Sioot, and dropped down to 
Benoub. A gentle breeze from the north cleared our 
deck of flies, and made life healthy and pleasant. So cir- 
cuitous is this part of the Nile, that in one bend we had 
the wind dead ahead, and in the next we shook out our 
ballakoon and ran before it. At Benoub was the home of 
Girghis. "We slept there; and though the khamsin was 
blowing the next morning — that favourable wind so 
rare to homeward-bound travellers, and so valuable, that 
every minute of it is precious, — he kept us waiting till 
9 a.m. When he did return at last, he added to his mis- 
conduct by coming laden with presents. Good bread and 



TOCr LATE. 



273 



excellent fresh butter were very welcome, but he brought 
besides a one-year-old sheep, neither lamb nor mutton. 
The present was too valuable to be accepted, and yet con- 
sideration for Girghis's feelings forced us to accept it. 
The animal, too, was of a more than usually gregarious 
disposition, and kept up a continuous bleat, that made us 
long to turn it loose ashore. But Girghis had taught us 
to like him. An exception to Arab rule, his manners 
were bad and his honesty great, so we bore with the 
sheep for his sake. With the favourable breeze we ran 
down at a great pace, say five or six miles an hour, to 
Manfaloot. Here the river doubles on itself to a degree 
unusual even on the Kile. Our delay in the morning 
made itself felt throughout the day. We were always just 
too late. Three several times as we came to a bend run- 
ning back to the south, the fitful breeze grew into a strong 
wind, and we had much difficulty in making a few hundred 
yards against its opposition. At the same time we had 
the mortification of seeing the boats just ahead, boats 
that had been almost in our company, but had turned 
the corner in time, sped along out of sight by the breeze 
that held us. These squalls increased in strength till 
Eadouan declared it not safe to proceed. Gebel Abou 
Fodhr was near, and though he stands on the east bank 
and the wind was from the south-west, so bad was his 
reputation, that our people were frightened to pass him. 
We persisted, however, as it was difficult to see how a 
mountain to leeward could be very dangerous. 



274 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



By dusk it had fallen calm, and we had put many miles 
between us and the gebel. We were in our cabins at 
dinner, when the noise of a rush of wind overhead and 
loud Arab shrieks disturbed us. Almost before I could 
get on deck, the squall had passed, and I found the men 
rowing like mad to get to the windward shore. By the 
time we reached it, they had forgotten their fright, and 
as they were as anxious as we were to get on, we con- 
tinued to creep along the bank. The heat, great all day, 
still continued, though it was now 8 p.m., and the weather 
was so unnatural, that remembering our Farshoot storm, 
I kept looking out for squalls. In about an hour I saw 
by the moonlight, a column of sand to windward, looking 
like the smoke rising from some immense bonfire. Ka- 
douan and the reis, however, declared that there was no 
sand hereabouts, it was all sugarcane. Five minutes 
afterwards there came a hot breath behind, like the blast 
from a furnace, and looking back we saw a perpendicular 
dust column crossing the river, 200 or 300 yards behind 
us. We had just time to run the boat round a small 
point and high upon a sloping bank, when the squall struck 
us. No harm was done, and we went to bed ; but I was 
soon asked to allow the boat to be again started. 

It was a lovely night \ the breeze was fair and steady, 
so, anxious to get letters at Minieh, we consented. At 
midnight there was again a scene of confusion and shout- 
ing. Ibrahim was so terrified that he could make no 
answer, but " Non sai io" to my inquiries, and I had to 



SQUALLS. 



get up and go on deck. I found that one of the same 
passing squalls had driven us aground in the centre of the 
river. On either side was a sandbank covered with water, 
and a heavy stream was pressing us further up the shoal 
we were on. The night was most uncanny to look at, and 
fearfully hot. Black clouds (clouds are portents on the 
Nile) covered up the north horizon, and a lurid light lit 
up the south-west. The men, frightened into activity, 
worked most vigorously ; but before they could get us 
afloat, a heavy rush of wind was heard approaching, 
and the wash of the waves caused by its passage, sounded 
in the calm as if close to us. It passed, however, on the 
further shore, half a mile off, and the wave was the only 
effect from it that we felt. The moment it was over, the 
men jumped again into the water, and heaving and straining 
with frantic efforts, they forced the boat afloat. Then we 
made for the nearest bank, and moored safe and fast. 

A rather particular, if not lengthy, account has been 
given of these squalls. They were so extraordinary in 
their suddenness, force, and narrowness of scope, that 
they made a great impression upon us. On each occasion 
there was nothing more, and sometimes much less, than a 
sudden strong wind at the part of the river we were on, 
but close to us passed by a most furious blast. The noise 
was unlike any wind noise ever heard in Europe; the 
water was white as I have seen it in a white squall in the 
Mediterranean; the sand, on one occasion, thick and 
round and perpendicular like a tower, at each time filled 

T 2 



276 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



to darkness the orbit of the squall, and this orbit was so 
small that we saw as it were round it. Behind and before 
and on either side we could see that there was a dead 
cairn ; then inside came a circle of strong wind, and in- 
side again travelled across the landscape, a gust like the 
smoke just blown from the mouth of a cannon. Our posi- 
tion during the last one was so unpleasant, that C. had to 
get up and dress herself. 

We were late the next morning in getting under 
weigh. Eadouan had lost his road, and, as a sensible 
man, waited until a boat passed, to tell him how to get 
out of the labyrinth of shoals around us. Eadouan had 
been well-taught that excellent rule, " Ask, if you don't 
know/'' and the result to us was, that we very rarely got 
aground. The khamsin still blowing, we ran rapidly by 
Beni Hassan, and were within a mile of Minieh, when a 
strong north wind reached us, and stopped our easy pro- 
gress. TTe had already landed Abed, and sent him home 
to his wife ; the boat was getting ready to send ashore for 
the letters we expected, when the wind shifted, and we 
were six hours and a half, making less than one and a 
half miles. 

Such is Xile travelling, such perhaps is all travelling 
by water, — nay, all travelling whatever, — nay, life itself. 
All is going well, the start has been rapidly effected, 
all obstacles are overcome, the wind and stream are 
favourable \ the miles are run easily by, already the 
goal is within reach ; one has but to reach out the hand 



SUGAR. 



277 



and grasp the prize. When suddenly the wind, or the 
trusted friend turns against one ; fortune fails, or health 
breaks down ; and with the promised haven of rest in 
sight, there conies a painful struggle. Many a man, 
wearies and faints by the way before it is over, and happy 
is he for whom it ends successfully. 

We found that the steamer, by which we intended to go 
to Constantinople, did not start as soon as expected, and 
as the quarter we had taken up under the pasha's house 
was clean, and comparatively free from flies, we remained 
at Minieh for a couple of days. Any dirty spot in Egypt, 
at this season of the year, is rendered unbearable by the 
flies; at the clean ones, there are not many more than 
may be found in a dirty town in a hot summer, in Eng- 
land. Minieh is a pretty place, and looks well to do, as, 
indeed, do most of the towns at this part of the river. 
Numbers of sugar factories were hard at work, others 
were building; the people seemed fully employed, 
healthy, well-dressed, and fed. Quantities of boats 
crowded the river bank, half a dozen steamers had just 
arrived, or were about to depart, and everything had a 
busy and prosperous appearance. Sugar was the cause 
of the stir. Sugar is the potent elixir vitce, by which 
Egypt may recover her youth. The cane harvest was 
commencing when we passed up in December ; it would 
be finished, we were told, in a fortnight. During 
these months the mills are unceasingly crushing the 
canes, and pressing out the juice. For the rest of the 



278 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



year, sugar-making or sugar-growing fully employs the 
neighbouring population. There are the canes to be 
planted, tended, watered, and cut, and, wherever sugar 
is made, labour is in steadily increasing demand. 

The next two days, the khamsin returned. We started 
on each of them, at about 9.30 a.m., and stopped at 
6 p.m. The distance travelled was seventy-six miles; 
giving an average of about four and a half miles an 
hour. Such is the rate of speed obtained on the Nile 
under favourable circumstances. Quick passages may be 
made, but only by continuous travelling, and by taking 
advantage of every opportunity. But an average of two 
miles an hour going up, and of three miles an hour 
coming down, is as much as can be reckoned on, unless 
the voyage be turned into a race, and the caprices of the 
wind be obeyed by night and by day. 

The heat during the last week had become excessive. 
The thermometer ranged during the day from 88° to 95°. 
We had become so accustomed, though not reconciled, to 
this high temperature, that we thought it cool when the 
thermometer stood at 87°, and I put on warmer clothes 
when it dropped to 80°. The weather, too, was treacher- 
ous and stormy. But where is it not so in the month of 
March ? Shortly below Aboogirg, we came upon the 
scene of the accident to the " Cerulean blue/' and there 
was still evidence to be seen of the strength of the gale 
that had blown, and weight of the rain that had fallen. 

At one place, the river bank, here about twenty feet 



STORM-MARKS. 



279 



high, had been cut through, and down to the level of the 
Nile bed. A gap of some sixty yards in width, marked 
the spot where a torrent had burst through the alluvial 
soil and forced its way into the river. The torrent bed, 
full of yellow sand and sandstone rocks, brought down 
from the mountains, contrasted strongly with the high 
perpendicular alluvial banks on either side ; and a delta 
of the same yellow colour had been pushed far into 
the Nile itself. A few miles lower, was another similar, 
but smaller, dry watercourse. Looking, as we were 
doing, at the burning sand, from whence the water that 
cut these trenches must have flowed, it seemed almost 
impossible to believe they existed. What manner of 
rain must it have been, to pour such a stream from off 
the thirsty desert ? How many inches of water would it 
take to fill to overflowing, and to overcome the absorbent 
power of a bed of sand, as fine as dust, and as many feet 
in depth as miles in extent ? 

Next lay a large stranded vessel, to testify to the 
strength of the gale. Dismantled, she was lying on a 
shoal, with the water flowing in and out of her. Further 
on, we came upon two more vessels, wrecked in the same 
storm. One was standing almost upright, her head 
resting on the bank against which she had been driven, 
whilst her stern had dropped with the shrinking waters 
to their present level. The other must have foundered in 
the squall, for though lying high and dry when we saw 
her, she was still half full of water. 



28o THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



Nile travelling, as the storms we have felt and the 
wrecks we have seen sufficiently prove, is not free from 
risk. The wind blows home, the boats are not too man- 
ageable, and by no means well-managed. There is 
little discipline, small skill, and no courage, to be 
found among the crews. The immense sail, the long 
yard, and the house on deck in which one lives, give 
great hold to the wind. A shoal or leeshore are always 
close, and under these circumstances it is quite possible 
to come to grief. 

These signs of disaster and the threatening weather in- 
duced us to stop for the night under a well-sheltering bank 
at a village half of which had been already washed away, 
and of whose remaining moiety, part was falling. In 
the night we were repeatedly woke, by the heavy splash 
made by the poor people's cottage walls, as they tumbled 
into the undermining river. Strong gusts of wind, too, 
blew from all quarters on and over us, and the men 
were obliged several times to tighten or readjust our 
moorings, as the quarter from which we were threatened 
changed. 

We tried the next morning to move, but were soon 
forced by the north wind to return. It was still hot, 
but the desert wind that caused the heat had been encoun- 
tered and driven back by the sea-breeze, and the tem- 
perature steadily fell. The first few hours after the 
north wind springs up, hours more or less according to 
the distance one finds oneself up the river, and to the 



TRUTH WASTED. 



281 



duration of the previous heat, the cold sea-breeze itself 
blows hot. On this occasion, the first breath of the 
north wind reached us in the middle of the night ; but 
the wind was not cool till late in the afternoon of the suc- 
ceeding day. In two hours more it was cold, and evidently 
fresh from the Mediterranean. Just in the same way 
does the khamsin commence comparatively cool, and rise 
in temperature as long as it continues. The gale blew 
fiercely all day, the ascending boats rushed up before it. 
Their sails, reefed after the Arab fashion, were filled out 
balloon -like high in the air, and the slackened sheets were 
held each in the hands of half a dozen men. Clouds of 
dust were borne along, hiding everything from view ; but 
it was wholesomely done by a fair honest breeze, and as 
the day went on, and the temperature decreased, we, well 
placed, sheltered from the wind, and lying behind a 
background of rich crops, that kept us free from sand, 
felt our spirits rise, and lungs play freely, in the invigor- 
ating air. So we spent the day with our farm on a mud 
terrace, cut in the bank, six to eight feet wide, and 
twenty yards long. Four turkeys, a dozen chickens, 
and Grirghis's sheep, greatly enjoyed their liberty ashore, 
and the Habitual, assuming a new character for our 
amusement, became pathetic. He told me some lie, and 
I did not believe it. He then told me the truth, and I 
did not believe it. This was too much for him. It was 
seldom that he expended truth, unless under compulsion. 
To do so on the second time of asking, and then not to 



282 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



be believed, was too bard. He almost cried, as be said, 
" II signer non credo io anclie quando parlo bene" 

It was 2 p.m. on tbe next day before tbe nortb wind 
moderated sufficiently to enable us to start, and at 7.30 
we reacbed Benesoueff, a distance of six or seven miles. 
But our day's work was not over. Tbe Benesoueff we 
left going up bad a broad navigable river before it, and 
we ancbored under tbe sbade of its trees. Now a buge 
sandbank, many feet above tbe water level, and as many 
bundred yards in breadtb, forbade approacb to the town. 
As tbe situation was exposed, and tbe weatber unsettled, 
we tried to drop to tbe foot of tbe sboals and reacb tbe true 
bank. We asked our way from tbe sailors of a number 
of native lighter boats, but, in spite of their directions, we 
struck tbe ground almost immediately. Tbe water was only 
just too thin for the dahabeab, and the stream, first sweep- 
ing her stern round, carried her broadside for more than 
fifty yards over tbe bank, grinding and scraping with a 
noise as of a rusb of wind, and a rasping jar that sbook 
every timber. At last we struck. Tbe crew went over- 
board, and heaved and strained for three hours to force the 
boat over tbe sboal into tbe deeper water beyond. Every 
foot of progress was registered by a scrape. Now she 
stuck fast, now we dragged on a few yards, tben bung 
again, and at last, witb a long grind, found ourselves 
afloat. Uncomfortable as is sometimes going ashore in 
the Nile, and serious as may be the loss of time, there is 
no shock to be dreaded. Tbe build of the dahabeahs; 



A GAUDY COMPANY. 



283 



and the softness of the bottom, combine to make running 
aground easy, and a tremor of the boat is felt rather than 
a blow. 

On the 18th March we woke at Benesoueff to shudder 
at the greeting of an old acquaintance. A bright sun, 
bitter cold wind, a blue sky, with white woolpacks hurry- 
ing across it, their edges fretted by the strength of the 
breeze, made as complete a March day as can be seen in 
England. As we looked at it, shivered in it, and got hot 
in it, one was reminded of the days when fond hopes of 
spring salmon had been blighted by similar weather, or 
one's mouth, eyes, and nose had been filled by the grit 
of a London street; and it required the positive contradic- 
tion of the sun's position to make us believe that the 
wind was not in the east. 

A few miles below Benesoueff we met a dahabeah, start- 
ing, late as it was, on her second trip. She carried flags 
of many nations, and travellers dressed in every colour. 
One was full-blown in red; his stockings were mauve> 
his knickerbockers magenta, a crimson sash in many 
folds encumbered his waist, and on his head was a 
scarlet fez. The tone of his complexion we could not see, 
for he was too much occupied in admiring his legs to lift 
his head; and of the rest of his dress, our eyes, dazzled 
by the general gorgeousness, refused to take in the 
details. 

In going up we were much struck by the signs of age 
shown by the mountains. Coming down, below Bene- 



284 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



soueff, these symptoms are still more noticeable. Battered 
as they are above, liere they are absolutely worn out. 
At Abou Fodhr the cliffs are still cliffs, upright and 
entire. The strata are thrown out in bold relief by the 
crumbling of the intervening softer layers, and though 
here and there broken and interrupted, can be distinctly 
traced running along the face of the mountain for miles. 
But opposite Minieh the rocks are more decrepit, and here 
are absolutely decayed. Their heads flattened, their faces 
without feature, their feet covered and surrounded by the 
debris that has fallen from above, the cliffs had deteriorated 
into mounds. We had remarked, too, how much prettier 
the scenery appeared to us when coming down than in 
ascending the river. So it was above, and so it was no 
longer. The Nile, shrunk among sandbanks, had lost the 
beauty inherent to it by virtue of its size and volume. 
The banks, grown up as the water had receded, shut out 
such view of the country as was before exhibited, and in the 
part we now found ourselves the river resembled a muddy 
estuary rather than the Nile. But the Nile changes with 
the day. The beauty of Egypt is colour, and her 
colouring is exquisite. Take away the light and shade, 
the yellows, greens, and reds peculiar to it, and the Nile 
becomes a muddy river, the banks ugly, the hills puny, 
and the desert a waste of sand. But let the sun shine 
out with its accustomed brilliancy, and the river is a sheet 
of silver; the banks, a frame one overlooks; the hills 
grow into mountains, and the yellow turns to gold. 



A FLO A TING HAREM. 



285 



It was spring time. The birds knew it, and made the 
most it. The wagtails had gone; but that cosmopolitan, 
whom we are apt to call the London sparrow, hopped about, 
and at one time we had eight or ten on our deck, repeat- 
ing that they were well aware of the season, till the energy 
of their assertions forced them to sit in the heat with their 
beaks gaping. A pair of doves took possession of the 
rigging, and chased each other with cooing and wooing 
till getting in our cabin, as we sat at breakfast, they were 
frightened at their own impudence. And another sign of 
the times was seen in the departure of the " families " of 
the Cairene pashas on their annual trip up Nile. 

The great men^s wives apparently require change of 
air in spring, for we met about this time several families 
on the river. There was the procession of three or four 
steamers, each towing dahabeahs, covered with guards and 
flags. The whole turn out was most magnificent, and at 
the same time dull, severe, and proper. But very amus- 
ing was the family of a mudir. A single dahabeah con- 
tained it, but with such difficulty that the decks were 
covered with women and children, and the cabins were so 
crowded, that a beauty, more or less fat, more or less old, 
but all more than less painted, was bursting full-blown out 
of every window. Dressed as they would be at home, 
with their faces and throats uncovered, we had, as we 
passed close by, an uncommon opportunity of seeing a 
harem. One strikingly pretty woman wore a most gor- 
geous dress of scarlet and gold, another had a very pretty 



286 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



gown of red and white stripes ; all ate, all talked, all 
laughed, and there was a general rush to look, at C. 

So great was the attraction of a European woman 
that the younger ones seemed for a moment to forget 
their sweetmeats, and one older lady even stopped in the 
peeling of a banana. The eunuch in charge was occu- 
pied, as we came up, in what appeared to me to be a 
flirtation in the stern cabin, but the general silence, the 
hushed voices, and non-cracking of nuts, recalled him to 
a sense of the situation. He made some gentle remon- 
strance at the small care shown by the family in the con- 
cealment of their charms; at which the oldest and plainest 
drew a veil over her face, but the others plainly said 
"bother," and we looked at each other with mutual grati- 
fication until the wind and stream separated us. It is my 
belief that the members of a family never cease eating 
something, unless they are better employed ; and how can 
this often be in a life spent without books, music, or 
society, and with a single old gentleman for all their 
amusement? No wonder that each summer adds to their 
roundness of shape, and that the faces we saw were not in- 
tellectual. Western fashions are finding their way east, 
and, as we were told, the harem prejudices were now 
much weakened. Instances were given me, truly or no, 
who can say? of Europeans having been invited to smoke 
their pipes and drink their coffee with the family of a 
radical pasha; and in Cairo 0. saw several broughams 
containing the kkedive's wives, in dresses not very unsuit- 



ISLAMISM. 



287 



able for a Buckingham Palace drawing-room. Some gauze 
was worn, it is true, but it was a highly liberal gauze, 
and the effect was more charming than conservative. 

We stopped at Kafr el Aiat at sundown, and were 
almost betrayed into laughing at the scene we saw 
acted on the beach. A man, evidently of position and 
sanctity, hurried down to say his evening prayer. As 
he reached the shore, his servants quickly took off their 
upper gowns and laid them on the ground. Walking 
over them, he spread his own in front. Then standing 
on it, he lifted up his hands, and began silently to pray. 
His servants ranged themselves in line behind him, and 
were joined by six or eight other people who had been 
loitering about. As the great man did, so did they. 
Presently he knelt, and bending forward, touched the 
ground with his forehead — so did they. Again and 
again he repeated the same genuflection ; each time 
touching the earth with his forehead, and coming to 
recover upon his heels. His every motion was followed 
by the row behind, as if they had been so many automa- 
tons, and the effect of the dozen or two of turbaned 
heads popping up and down from as many pair of feet 
fixed to one spot, was ludicrous in the extreme. 

We had always greatly admired the manner in 
which these people pray. Though the posture and 
gestures may seem exaggerated, and even ridiculous, in 
such a case as I have been describing, they are, when 
simply employed, most reverent ; and, as a rule, the Arab 



288 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



prays with an apparent forgetfulness of self, and an 
absence of either false shame at being seen praying, or 
of pretension of praying, that might be well imitated in 
more enlightened countries. The men pray as if it were 
a matter of course that every one should pray ; and as if 
when doing so, they were totally absorbed. There is no 
doubt much of manner in this. The prayers are merely 
repetitions with set gestures; and like all repetitions 
with prescribed actions, the whole has a tendency to 
become a matter of form. But the form is striking, and 
none the less good, that Eadouan, our strictest Mus- 
sulman, will stop in his prayers to give a necessary order, 
or that the holy man to-night continued kneeling with 
his head erect for at least five minutes, when it should 
have been on the ground, in order that he might indulge 
himself with a good stare at us. As he did, his followers 
did : when he had seen enough, so had they. 

I have not unfrequently heard people wonder at the 
success and duration of Islamism, but there is nothing 
surprising in either. The religion is exactly suited to the 
people who profess it. It befits their ignorance, tempts 
their sensuality, and its observances are congenial 
to the climate in which they live. If for one quality 
only, a Mussulman is a pleasanter companion in a Mus- 
sulman or hot country, than the professor of any other 
religion. He is clean, and the more religious he is, the 
greater is his cleanliness. Eadouan and his clothes are 
as white and well- washed as it is possible for clothes and 



PALM-TREE BEAUTY. 



289 



an Arab to be. Ibrahim, two days after he came to me, 
asked leave to go and be bled. I asked why ; and he 
replied that at that time of year it was good to have 
blood taken. Besides his skin itched. I forbad the 
doctor, and prescribed a daily bath, with a plentiful 
application of yellow soap. The remedy was successful; 
but it was needed because Ibrahim was a Copt. 

Our last day in Upper Egypt was a charming one. 
There was a gentle southerly air, cool after the norther 
we had lately suffered; but cool with the balmy softness 
peculiar to desert air. The sun shone out with Egyptian 
brilliancy, making deep the shadows and bright the 
light. At Chobac we passed the paradise of our ascent, 
but a glimpse even into the promised land was denied us. 
The six or eight feet, or perhaps more, that the Nile had 
fallen, had dropped us so far below the bank, that the 
line of our sight only took in the upper half of the 
palms standing a little back, and the tops of those 100 
yards inland. Perhaps it was as well. The 800 miles 
we had come north had taken something from the light 
and colour, we, in going up, thought not to be surpassed, 
and the palm-tree here is not the palm of the south. 
With a bark, if their skin is to be called bark, hard, 
dark, and strongly resembling the outside of a Scotch 
fir-cone, they stand erect and stiff, singly too, or in rows, as 
if planted rather than nature-sown. The heads, in keep- 
ing with the trunks, have branches shorter, squatter, 
stiffer, and lack the luxuriant wavy bending grace of the 

XJ 



290 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



southern tree. Here, too, they are what an M.F.H. 
would call sizeable, a quality which adds much to their 
plantation appearance. 

The trees we had grown to admire till we thought 
them the most lovely in the world, were very different. 
Scattered about, here and there, singly or in groups ; now 
one, now ten, now twenty, springing from the parent 
tree, of all ages, of all sizes, bending in all directions, and 
swaying with the breeze like the fronds of a fern, they 
were as natural, as little stiff, and as graceful, as trees 
well could be. There was immense variety in their 
position too. They grew out of the green crop, and 
close by, from the bright red sand. A solitary tree stood 
by itself, or perhaps a dozen, or a whole grove of them, 
where at one part the eye glanced through the stems on 
to the desert beyond, at another rested on mimosas and 
nabuks, or occasionally on oranges or lemons, that closed 
the vistas, and bounded the views. Or still more beau- 
tiful, the palms grew in a thick wood of % trees of every 
age, from the babies two or three feet high, sprouting 
like gigantic pineapples, to the monster tall as "the mast 
of some high amiral." 

The trees, when we came into Egypt, were in fruit, — 
their handsomest season. They were now in flower, and 
we were told that it is the custom of the peasants to shake 
the dust from the flower of the male tree over the blossom 
of the female, and that without this there would be no fruit. 
The male tree is much the least common, and is fruitless. 



A VIEW OF CAIRO. 



291 



Below Ckobac is Bedreshayn, where antiquaries and 
men in health stop as the nearest point to Memphis. 
Between these two villages there is a lovely view for all. 
A reach, broad and long, runs down to Toorah, with its 
quarries and forests of masts. Above and behind 
Toorah stand some large government buildings, which 
show with great effect from the commanding position 
they have taken at the extremity riverwards of the 
Toorah Massarah hills. On the east lies the desert. On 
the west, a sloping green bank, broken here and there by 
large woods of palms. Behind these again, visible be- 
tween or over them, stand the great Pyramids and the 
less imposing ones of Sakarah, Memphis, and the Colossus. 
At the foot of the reach, Cairo suddenly comes into view. 
The capital of Egypt is seated like a bird on a hill, the 
whole of which it covers with outspread wings. The 
face of the mount now presented to us was a sheer 
abrupt descent. The buildings nestle to the very verge 
of the precipice ; below, no foot could rest, and there is 
nothing to detract from the boldness with which the city 
has, as it were, taken its perch. High above all stretches 
upwards the citadel, with the dome and minarets of its 
magnificent mosque. The grand site has been most 
happily occupied, and suddenly seen as the city was by 
us, with the last rays of the evening light flitting over 
the buildings, and every line of the architecture clearly 
and sharply defined against the darkening sky, it ap- 
peared more like a dream of fairyland, or a scene in a 

u 2 



292 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



play, or a fiction of Turner's, than a real and living 
town. 

In addition also to the perfection of its own site, 
Cairo possesses, with London, with Paris, Vienna, and 
many a capital, the advantage of being placed amid some 
of the prettiest scenery in the country over which it 
rules, and the approach to it from below, is almost as 
striking as the one I have tried to describe. 

Eeaching old Cairo some three miles above Boolak, we 
came upon the mouth of a tempting-looking canal. So 
at least we called the small arm of the river that divides 
the island of Eoda from the mainland, the entrance 
reminding us for a moment of the Grand Canal of 
Venice. It seemed, however, worth exploring, and as 
we were too late for letters at Cairo, we indulged our 
whim, and, contrary to all custom, turned into it for the 
night. Several large and handsome houses, the property 
of high officers of State, stand upon the banks, and the 
well-kept gardens belonging to them, as well as the 
wilder ones of the smaller villas, were filled with orange, 
lemon, and jasmin trees, that grew like weeds, and were 
now white with flower. So overpowering was the fra- 
grance of these rather faint- smelling blossoms, that we 
were obliged to change the place we first stopped at for 
another with more fresh air and less scent. The morrow 
proved how good it is to yield to one's inclinations. 
Beautiful as the evening had been, it began to blow in 
the night, and by daybreak we had a full gale from the 



A BRIDGE OF BOATS. 



293 



south. The wind continued in such force for three days, 
that we remained where we were, congratulating ourselves 
that our discomfort was not worse. The heat was great, 
and the clouds of dust so thick, that for two days the sun 
was never seen. The dust-charged atmosphere was very 
distressing, both to eyes and lungs. But in the canal, 
we had at least the advantage of smooth water. There 
were laid up around us a number of dahabeahs, and 
amongst them were several of medium and of small 
dimensions, so that the canal would probably repay a 
visit from any one about to hire a boat, and who did not 
leave the selection of it entirely to his dragoman. 

On the morning of the 24th March, we got again under 
weigh. We had heard that the pasha had, since our 
departure from Cairo, thrown a bridge of boats across 
the river from Boolak to his palace at Gezereh. Various 
reasons were assigned for the enterprise. Some declared 
that the khedive had merely intended by it to facilitate 
the access of the distinguished guests entertained on the 
occasion of one of the late balls. Others said that he 
was desirous of saving himself trouble in crossing, or 
perhaps hoped by its means to escape drowning at the 
hands of his boatmen, suspected, in common with the 
rest of his subjects, of not being too fond of him. But 
no one thought it possible that he could have been actu- 
ated by any desire for the good of the country. 

Our way taking us through the bridge, we made in- 
quiries as to the hours of its opening, and in accordance 



294 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



with the information we received, we dropped down to it 
before 9 a.m. The morning was a calm and lovely one ; 
the river crowded with craft of all builds and sizes. There 
stretched the bridge before ns ; no moderate structure, an 
example of the wise economy that proportions expenditure 
to requirement, such as would have suited a correspond- 
ing amount of traffic in Europe, but proclaiming an union 
of Eastern magnificence with "Western practical science 
in the macadam of its road and solidity of construction. 
But alas for us, and ten times alas for the commerce of 
Egypt, the management of the bridge when built, is 
essentially Eastern. It was closed when we reached it, 
and we took up a position among such a crowd of boats 
waiting, like us, to pass, that it was with much difficulty 
we could find room to push our bow to shore, and so we 
waited. Cairo is not Coblentz or Cologne. The readiness 
with which the Ehine bridges are worked (and the de- 
tention of the land or water traffic is reduced by good 
management to a minimum), is fully equalled on the Nile 
by the inertness and misconduct of the Egyptian officials. 
In vain we- sent again and again to the kaftan of the 
bridge. Our impatience and the loss of time endured by 
the native boats were to him matters of equal unimport- 
ance. At last we heard that it did not please him to open 
the bridge that day, and the only favour granted to our 
foreign extraction and perseverance, was a promise that 
if one of the pasha's steamers passed through, we should 
be allowed to follow her. No such steamer came ; the 



A RAT. 



295 



kaftan, as good, as his word, did not open the bridge, and 
we remained where we were. 

The day was not, however, altogether without incident. 
As I lay on the deck watching for the pasha, who 
would not come, I heard some loud screams below 
me. Hobbling quickly down the companion, I looked 
into the cabin and saw — a drawer half pulled out, a 
quantity of linen on the floor, C. standing on a divan, 
her cheeks very red, her eyes very open, and with much 
regard for her petticoats, holding them well out of danger. 
The Faithful was on the floor with a huge rat, held by the 
nape of the neck, in his hand, and the state of his thumb 
showed that the seizure had been fiercely resisted. It 
turned out that C. had been taking something out of a 
drawer, and as she did so, the father of a rat family 
jumped into her lap, and became therein entangled. 
The Faithful, ever ready, rushed to the rescue, chased 
the aggressor into a corner, and caught it as described. 
But what was to be done with it ? The rat's head and 
Abed's thumb were so close, that one could not be hit 
without offence to the other. To throw the rat overboard 
would be to grant a full pardon ; and this, not even C. 
would hear of. For once, the reis was the readiest. 
Pushing down Abed's hand, he put his bare foot on the 
rat's head, and stamped the animal's life out as easily as 
I have seen him extinguish a vesuvian or piece of live 
charcoal that had dropped on the deck. The social 
position we had assigned by guess to the victim, was 



296 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



positively established a few days afterwards. On the 
drawer being again opened, there was seen curled up in 
a nice little hole carefully made in some soft Turkish 
towels, his interesting newly-born posthumous family. 

Shortly after this episode, the sound of a tomtom sum- 
moned us on deck to look at the procession of an Arab 
wedding. Procession is a badly chosen word, conveying 
as it does an idea of some sort of order and some sort of 
progress. In this case there was the least possible amount 
of either. A number of children led the line, clad in loose 
red and white or other gay coloured gowns, and reminded 
us strongly of Eoman Catholic " enfants de chceur" A 
crowd of men swept the way with palm branches, and a 
number of women who would be best described as walking 
bundles of clothes, so manifold were their garments, 
hustled round a canopy under which stood the bride. 
This covering was made of some gaudy yellow and red 
stuff, with a tawdry fringe, supported by four carved and 
gilded poles; and the bride, as she stood under it, covered 
with a thick white veil, and adorned by dozens of strings 
of gold coins which hung from her head to her waist, 
exactly resembled at the short distance we were from her 
an effigy of the Virgin. The path along which the crowd 
was making its way, ran along the top of a narrow bank, 
and the line, perforce lengthened out, took at least an 
hour to pass us. Sick were we of the tomtom before it 
had done so, and still more sick of the wedding before it 
was over. At intervals during all the day and through 



A WEDDING. 



297 



the night, the monotonous drum broke in upon us again 
and again, accompanied by the screams of Arabs, and the 
discharge of guns. 

In the afternoon, a pretty, nice-looking fellaheen woman 
came to fill her water-jar at our side. C. asked her on 
board, the better to buy a handsome silver bracelet she 
had on, and we found her full of fun, ready with her 
questions, and free with comments on all she saw and 
heard. Equally at home in her wit and her language, 
she had the best of our encounter, and her parting shot 
was a strong recommendation to me that T should increase 
my "family," and an assurance to C. that she would 
never be dull if she only had a sister. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

CAIRO TO ALEXANDRIA. 

The bridge was not opened till the next morning at 10, 
and curious indeed was the scene. Any one possessed of 
a lively imagination, and an acquaintance with Temple Bar 
on a summer' s afternoon, might conceive some idea of it. 
Let him widen the bar to 50 feet, and make of each curb- 
stone a huge iron barge. Then transform every omnibus, 
cab, cart, or carriage, into an Arab craft, with even more 
dissimilarity in size and shape. Of every driver, or cad, 
make an Arab boatman, with Arab voice and Arab want 
of skill. The khedive's kawasses naturally replace the 
policemen, and are quite as well obeyed as Division A. 
Under their orders the fearful confusion of the first rush 
is soon calmed into something like order. Precedence is 
given to the boats coming down, and with much hauling 
of ropes, pulling of oars, grinding of bulwarks, we, in 
company with a hundred others, get crushed through 
the gap in the bridge. 

We stopped immediately below, to recover our breath 
and watch the struggles of those who had still to pass. 
Our amusement, however, if amusement it could be 
called, did not last long. Hardly were we made fast when 
the kaftan, tired of the noise, or wanting to go home to 
his breakfast, or desirous of showing his authority, or for 



EGYPTIAN OFFICIALS. 



299 



some reason equally valid in Egypt, ordered the bridge 
to be closed. There was waiting to pass over it at the 
time one single-horse brougham, six donkeys, and five 
camels laden with grass. There were waiting to go 
through it at least three or four score of merchant boats. 

A very short stay in Egypt so accustoms one to the 
oppression habitually exercised by Egyptian officials in 
their dealings with the fellaheen, that it scarcely surprises 
one that delay, as great as it is needless and senseless, 
should be imposed on boats passing the other impedi- 
ments on the river, in the shape of locks and bridges. 
But it is strange that at Cairo, under the very eyes of the 
government, such short-sighted and mischievous mis- 
conduct should be permitted. The Nile, as everyone 
knows, is the highroad of Egypt. On it the whole com- 
merce of the country is carried, and, as probably every- 
one out of Egypt does not know, the larger portion of 
the gains of this commerce goes into the pocket of the 
khedive. Everything is taxed, the boats, the cordage, 
the cargo, the very men who navigate them. These 
boats and men, therefore, work for the pasha when working 
for themselves ; and yet his servants are allowed, without 
reason or cause, to tax them in their time, and at their 
pleasure or caprice to stop their labour. Can anything 
more idiotic be conceived, than the needless impeding of 
the work of those who are working for you ? Fancy a 
sterile queen bee sitting at home, and causing the door 
of the hive to be plugged up ; and this is precisely what 



300 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 

is done by the paternal and loan-raising government of 
Egypt. 

Dropping down with the stream, we passed a fleet of large 
and handsome dahabeahs, lying at anchor for the summer. 
Some were in the charge of caretakers, their cabins 
closed, Venetian blinds shut, and side awnings down. 
Others were inhabited by their Egyptian owners. One 
was pointed out as the property of a Cairene lady who 
letting it in the winter, used it in the summer as a villa. 

With some difficulty we found a mooring place at 
Ramleh, where we remained for the arrangement of our 
business at Cairo. 

In the evening, a French resident merchant dined with 
us ; and a native effendi, who was a boatbuilder and daha- 
beah owner by trade, paid us a visit. He came to see 
the Lotus with a view to purchase, but of course, with 
Arab truth, declared his purpose to be to pay us a visit. 
" All he cared for, all he wanted, was to see me well, and 
to make friends. Friends/' he said, cc are gold. Money I 
can always make; but if you willbe my friends, and you, sir, 
will get well, that is all I care. Egypt must do you good. 
Was I not ill in it, and did I not go away to your country, 
and come back sound ? You shall come again, sir, and 
have all my boats for nothing, so that you will oblige me 
by getting well."" 

During the summer the effendi and his family, a 
numerous one we were told, live on board his different 
dahabeahs. They had already moved into them, and 



AN EGYPTIAN GUEST. 



301 



many and pressing were the invitations given to us to 
come and see their home. " Would we dine with him ? 
He did not live like the Arabs, but was an educated man. 
His wives sat at table with him, and should sit at table 
with us." Our French friend said, " What ! the last one, 
the Circassian, will she be at table? " At this the effendi 
grew angry. " Circassian there was none ; his brother 
had died, and he had taken his brother's wives ; was not 
that good?" When out visiting he was as much above 
prejudice as he represented himself to be at home, and 
he was equally liberal with the Bordeaux, and abuse of 
Eamadan. " Did he keep it ? yes, before the Arabs, 
the pigs ! And after eating by day-time, out of their 
sight, he wiped his mouth so [with the sleeve of his coat]^ 
and then who knew ? " Englishmen never say so much 
evil in public of their government, or of " the system," 
nor do Italians, or even Irishmen, ever so heartily abuse 
in private each themselves, as an Arab does an Arab. 
The very word Arab is used amongst them as a term of 
contempt. 

Our business completed, we were impatient to leave 
the noisy Eamleh, but the crew were equally anxious to 
pass another night at Cairo. Various expedients to 
detain us were therefore resorted to, and they resulted 
in our getting under weigh at 3 p.m., and leaving the 
absent negro, Said, behind us. Paddling slowly down in 
a dead calm, we that evening reached the Fumelbach, as 
the turnpike gate is called which stretches across the Nile, 



302 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



some fifteen miles below Cairo. This barrage, as the 
guide books style it, was erected as they tell us with a 
view to the construction of a system of irrigation works 
for the improvement of the Delta ; but as the boatmen 
aver, for the purpose of enabling toll to be levied on the 
boats passing through it. Certain is it that that is the 
only object which it now serves, unless impeding the 
navigation can be also called one. The barrage is a weir 
whose design might have been borrowed from the pictures 
of a fortified wall in an illustrated Froissart. A long 
line of brickwork spans the river, several hundred yards 
in breadth, and presents to view an infinity of small 
arches and turrets. Each arch is flanked and ornamented 
by two turrets, and closed by a sluice gate. Through 
these gates the water apparently finds its way at will, 
for there was not more than a few inches difference in the 
level above and below the river when we passed it. On 
either side, next the bank, is a pair of look-out towers, 
with proportions considerable as compared with the 
turrets. Between these towers is a lock, through which 
the boats are passed and fleeced. Across the water- 
gates are moveable bridges, giving access to a road that 
runs over the whole structure, and completing the medieval 
appearance of this costly, ugly, and worse than useless 
toll-bar. 

Stopping above it at night, in order that we might 
pass through whenever it should be opened the next 
morning, and knowing our Egypt better than when we 



PRACTICAL PERSUASION. 



303 



entered it, we had instructed the reis to give the officials 
in charge such a backshish as might ensure permission to 
pass without loss of time. This I was assured had been 
done, and as our truant boatman had also caught us up, we 
were surprised to find ourselves at 10 a.m. still in the lock. 
At last it occurred to me that though the reis declared the 
backshish to have been given, it was quite possible that in 
whole or in part it had stuck in his pocket. So calling 
him, I said that we had already been detained too long, and 
that for every additional half-hour of detention five francs 
should be deducted from the backshish I intended to 
give him on our arrival at Alexandria. The effect of this 
announcement was magical. Were we in the land of 
Morgiana, "Open Sesame" could scarcely have done its 
work quicker. In a moment the old man's active legs 
had carried him by way of the rigging out on to the 
coping-stone of the lock, ten feet above us. In another 
minute the kaftan was taken aside, the necessary order 
from him was given, the gates were opened, and we were 
free. 

From this point our journey was made dull by the ill- 
ness of C. Perfectly well at Cairo, she woke at the Fumel- 
bach in a high fever and severe pain. Chance inquiries 
had told us that there was no doctor to be depended on 
at Cairo, and our best course, as the wind was fair, was to 
race on to Alexandria, trusting till then to our own skill. 
Fortunately this was sufficient, and before we reached a 
doctor we had no need of one. But the pleasure of our 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



trip was over, and the last lingering delusions, — fruits of 
Lady Duff Gordon's Letters, — on the amiability of Arab 
character, that our other experiences had not dispelled, 
were now destroyed. We had three days' most favourable 
weather. The wind was with us or there was none ; and, 
with the least exertion, a remarkably quick passage might 
have been made. The men knew how anxious I was to 
get to Alexandria, and the cause of my anxiety. There 
was not one of them who had not, for some reason or 
other, been impelled to protest his readiness to do any- 
thing in the world for "the sittee," as 0. was entitled, 
but there were only two who would even do their common 
duty when the occasion demanded it and called for some- 
thing more. 

Acting as doctor and nurse, I was necessarily a great 
deal in the cabins. Whenever I was so, not a stroke of 
work was done. The oars were dipped with a splash and 
taken out again. The men roared out improvised songs, 
and the impatience of the hawager was a point that served 
to season every joke, and never ceased to produce fits of 
laughter. Even when I was on deck a constant sham 
was kept up, and I had the greatest difficulty to get any 
work out of the worse than lazy rascals. 

But the Nile stream is a good friend, and in two days 
we reached Kafr e Zayat. I had timed our arrival, as at 
the Fumelbach, so as to be there in the early morning. 
We remembered the delay suffered at the railway bridge 
on our up-voyage, and determined, if the bridge were 



IRRITATING DETENTION. 



305 



opened at all during the day, to be at the opening. 
Nevertheless, we did not escape a detention, which 
though much less in time, was even more irritating and 
uncalled-for. 

In the high Nile all but quite small boats must pass 
through the bridge, one arch of which is swung aside to 
clear a passage. But the water had now greatly fallen, 
and judging by my eye, I thought when I came on deck 
that we could pass or nearly so underneath. The reis 
was absent. He had gone ashore to pay the toll, and 
give such backshish as would prevent any needless delay. 
So, calling Eadouan, I asked if we could not go under the 
bridge. "No," said he; "the reis had already mea- 
sured the height of the arch with a string, and there was 
not room." There was nothing, then, for it but to wait. 
At 10 a.m. the reis returned. He had seen the kaftan, 
and paid the toll, but the bridge would not be opened till 
the afternoon. 

Experience had long taught us that the afternoon in 
Arabic is the equivalent of an English to-morrow, that 
to-morrow which never comes, and that if it meant any- 
thing more it was a at such a time as should please the 
officials." But experience had also taught us never to 
believe anything we heard, and so I asked the reis when 
he had measured the height of the arch. " When ! not at 
all." Eadouan had simply told a lie, as being more easy 
than to walk 100 yards and take a measurement. The 
reis, always ready to do any work himself, at once took 

x 



306 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



string and stone, measured the height of our mast from 
the water, ran like a boy of fourteen to the bridge, mea- 
sured that, and returned to show that we could go under, 
and had nearly a foot to spare. So we had lost two or three 
hours by Eadouan's gratuitous invention. 

A start was immediately ordered, but notwithstanding 
that the toll had been paid, the backshish given, and we 
had nothing to do but float under the bridge, this could 
not be done without the kaftan's permit. Irritated as 1 
was, and anxious to get forward, we were still determined 
if possible to have right on our side, and to obey the law, 
however senseless it seemed. So before breaking it we 
sent a letter to the traffic manager of the railway, who 
has the supreme control of the bridge, asking for a per- 
mit, and explaining the urgency of our case. The great 
man obligingly gave the required firman at once, and 
we dropped under the obstacle that was no obstacle, and 
had yet so vexatiously detained us all the morning. I was 
too busy with our own affairs to observe how many boats 
were waiting above bridge for leave to pass it, but once 
through it there was time to look about, and I counted 
fifty-five moored to the banks below. Fully half of them 
were no larger than our own boat, and could have passed 
as we did under the arch. They did not dare to do so. 

Some of their crews told us, in answer to inquiries I made 
as we floated by, that they had been waiting since the yes- 
terday's early morning. They had paid for the opening 
of a bridge they could have gone under when shut, but 



EASTERN GOVERNMENT. 



307 



they had not got their firman, and without it they dared 
not move. Is there any other land where permission 
would be given to a railway company to build a bridge 
across a navigable river, and to levy a toll for passing 
through or under it on the boats whose carrying trade it 
was endeavouring to supersede or compete with ? Com- 
petition was at one time in England considered to confer 
a locus standi for the opposition by a rival of a railway 
bill before parliament. But imagine such a reason being 
held to justify the taxation by the new company of the 
means of trade hitherto enjoyed by the public. 

It is doubtful policy of the khedive to deprive his 
hard-working and money-for-him-getting subjects of the 
right of way by which they make it ; a right of way 
made sacred by tens of centuries of prescription. It is, 
to say the least of it, an arbitrary measure to obstruct the 
exercise of such a right, and scant justice to burden with 
the heavy cost of the obstruction the boatmen who 
lose by it, instead of the company for whose profit it 
was built. Bad, too, it must be owned, is the manage- 
ment which detains for days together the larger vessels, 
whose passage through the bridge requires that it should 
be opened. But what can be said of the further abuse of 
power which taxes and detains the smaller boats that 
could pass without any such derangement of the com- 
peting line of rail ? Fancy the Metropolitan Bailway 
having and exercising the power to levy a heavy toll on 
the Citizen steamers, the coal barges and wherries of the 



3o8 



THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



Thames ; and, further, to detain them for two or three 
days at Hungerford Bridge. Yet this is exactly what is 
done in Egypt, under the authority of the khedive, whom 
we are all taught in England to regard as an enlightened 
ruler, anxious above all things to develope the resources 
of the country he governs. 

It was nearly 1 p.m. before we cleared Kafr e Zayat ; 
but the breeze, though light, was fair, and we hoped 
quickly to complete our journey. The men, however, 
continued their misconduct, and we dawdled along at 
the rate of speed we were carried by the gentle air and 
stream. To make up for time lost by day, I would not 
permit any stop by night; and the next morning we 
turned out of the Nile at Atfeh. 

We were only detained two or three hours at the lock, 
and at 10 a.m. had passed into the canal. How necessary 
it is to compare things with their surroundings if we 
desire to judge them fairly ! The conduct of public men 
in past centuries is not to be measured by the standard 
of morality now existing ; nor, to compare small things 
with great, can time in Egypt be rated at the value given 
to it in England. Waiting three-quarters of an hour at 
Sunbury Lock would be an unheard-of hardship. Passing 
through the lock at Atfeh with a loss of only three hours 
was, to us, a matter of congratulation. 

The morning was calm, but we were within 40 miles 
of Alexandria. Alexandria meant backshish. It was, 
therefore, no longer safe to behave ill; and we had 



ARAB CHARACTER. 



309 



scarcely passed the lock-gates before our crew — yester- 
day so unwilling, to-day most zealous — leapt ashore with 
the tow-rope, as if to work was the joy of their lives, and 
to please us the only desire of their hearts. Greater 
children than the Egyptian Arabs never lived. They will 
continuously shirk all duty, evade or disobey orders, and 
misconduct themselves as much as they dare for days 
together. Their whole craft and energy will be devoted 
to the not doing, in such a way as to escape actual pu- 
nishment, that which they ought to do. Then, wanting 
something, they will strive as hard for a dozen hours to 
please as they have before to render themselves disagree- 
able, and they expect that the bad conduct will be 
immediately overlooked in the good. Perhaps all this 
is natural, for they themselves seem absolutely without 
malice, or even the power of resentment. Their passion 
is strong, but most evanescent. In their dealings with 
us, the infliction of punishment seemed to produce not 
only submission, but affection ; and any quarrels that 
arose among them were entirely forgotten on the instant 
they were appeased. 

It was impossible really to like people whose characters 
were so weak, so tricky, and so false; men so little 
amiable one to the other, so without sympathy and harsh 
to each others' misfortunes. And yet one could not part 
angrily with those whose faults seem rather to be the 
result of continuous tyranny and misgovernment than 
fairly attributable to their nature. It may well be that the 



3io THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



hardness with which they regard the mischances of others 
is the consequence of familiarity with suffering ; and that 
the spirit of intrigue, so opposed to our English tastes, 
has been engendered by constant oppression. We came 
amongst them expecting to find a highly-endowed, if 
ignorant; race ; we left them with a knowledge that they 
were full of faults, and yet pleasant to live with. And I 
believe that the greater part of the discomforts we en- 
dured at their hands, was the consequence of ill-judged 
actions of good nature. The stick is a lever abhorrent to 
English, ideas. There would never be any need of it in 
Egypt if strict discipline were enforced, improper be- 
haviour invariably punished, and injudicious kindness 
avoided. But no positive offence should be suffered 
to pass unnoticed, no command once given should be 
allowed to fall to the ground, and no indulgence should 
be granted that the customs of the country do not 
authorise. 

We were doomed to encounter in the Mahmoodeeh 
canal yet another of the violent gales for which the season 
had been so remarkable. It met us full in the teeth ; 
and if it was difficult to keep our hold to the bank, in 
spite of moorings and anchor, it was impossible for 
Girghis to give us any dinner. 

The next day it blew almost equally hard, and we saw 
a market held on the bank under difficulties. But on the 
day after, we passed the spot from whence we started, 
and were towed between the villas and their gardens 



NILE ATTRACTIONS. 



311 



right into Alexandria. Yet another day or two found us 
on the way to Constantinople. 

Our opinions of the attractions offered by a Nile voyage 
to either invalid or tourist, as well as of the drawbacks to 
be encountered, and the price to be paid in money and 
trouble, have been so fully expressed in the course of 
these pages, that there seems small scope for last words. 
But I cannot make an end without saying once more that 
the climate of Upper Egypt, in the winter, is as enjoyable 
as I believe any on earth can be; that of the mono- 
tony experienced by some travellers, we found none ; and 
that to a sick man, the life led on the Nile, and which I 
have endeavoured to describe, is as agreeable as it is 
health-giving. To be absolutely free from any care, but 
that perversely carried with you; to be absent from the 
hurry, bustle, and activity of home daily life, with enough 
to occupy and distract, and nothing to fatigue the brain ; 
with air as balmy as it is soft, appetite giving and sleep 
compelling ; with sun to warm by day, and freshness 
by night to string and brace the nerves; with all 
temptation to live in the open air, and cabins to retire to, 
literally under the foot, whenever rest or quiet be desired 
—every aid is given to wearied nature striving to recover 
her lost powers. And of all the many places to which, 
seeking for health, I have been sent by doctors, by friends 
recommended, or by fancy prompted, I know of none to 
be compared to the Nile, either for the enjoyment it 
affords, or the chances of recovery it offers. 



312 THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. 



It may be as well, too, to add as proof, that Nile tra- 



velling is within the reach of men of moderate means ; 
that the whole cost of our expedition from Cairo to Wadi 
Halfeh and back was only £60 per month. This sum 
included £40 for the hire of the Lotus, the wages of 
our servants, the cost of the provisions sent from Eng- 
land, backshish given to the crew, and every incidental 
expense. The amount was ridiculously small as compared 
with the ordinary rate of expenditure in a dahabeah ; but 
then we ventured on "the Nile without a Dragoman." 



THE END. 





020 143 534 1 



